


New Education

by quicksparrows



Series: Side by Side – Chrobin [11]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-15 08:33:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4599987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One minute they're lounging and reading, the next his wife is asking if she can peg him. He's not so sure, and then he's entertaining the idea, and then he's maybe -- just MAYBE-- going to let her do it. If they can get their hands on the tool of the trade first, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something New

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is affectionately known as "Chrom and Dildos", but I figured it needed a more serious title.
> 
> This is part one, obviously. There will be more later. [Spooky finger waggle.]

.

 

                They're relaxing in bed after dinner when Ada asks the question that makes Chrom pause.

                "Could I peg you?"

                He puts on an expression something like confusion, but he definitely knows what she’s talking about. Maybe it's the surprise of it: one minute they're lounging and reading, the next his wife is asking if she can peg him.

_Could she peg him?_

                He just laughs, not quite meeting her eyes.

                "Isn't it supposed to be 'May I?'" he asks, teasing. "I think I've heard you correct people with that about a million times now…”

                Ada smiles.

                “You’re dodging the question," she replies. She fishes her bookmark out of its old page, places it fresh, and then closes her book in her lap. She watches him for a reaction, amused. “You can say no, you know. I just thought it'd be fun."

                Chrom shifts down in bed, stretching out on his back, side of his head against her bare hip. She reaches to comb her fingers through his hair, tousling his bangs back, and he gives a comfortable hum from the back of his throat.

                "Maybe," he says, finally. "It doesn't sound good, to be honest, but if you'd like it, maybe we could try it."

                Ada laughs.

                "I have a finger up your ass just about every time I go down on you," she says. "You don't like that?"

                Chrom makes a scoffing noise, though it's fairly lighthearted.

                “That’s not true,” he says.

                “It is true,” she says.

                “Well, fine, but that’s different," he says, looping an arm under her knee and placing a hand on the inside of her thigh, which he lazily runs up and down. "And it sounds weird when you say it like that.”

                 "You also had a good time when I rimmed you," Ada points out. “That _once._ ”

                 “Don’t say ‘rimmed’," he says. He’s a little flushed around the cheeks suddenly. “It also sounds weird."

                 “ _Rimmed?_ " she repeats back to him, deliberately.

                 Chrom makes an odd expression, and his hand stills on her knee when he looks up at her.

                 "It just sounds... I don't know. Don't you have words that just make your stomach turn a bit? Like 'moist.'"

                 Ada looks down at him with a raised eyebrow, and he chuckles, despite himself. Funny that a man so enthusiastic in bed could be so awkward in frank discussion of the same, but that's Chrom in a nutshell. He's always been more himself on the battlefield than in council, and all. Whatever: whether he likes the word aloud or not, Ada knows how Chrom _really_ feels about rimming, and that's all that really matters. 

                 "Well, good thing there are plenty of other words I could use," Ada says, still fingering his hair. "But think about it?"

                 "I'll think about it," he says. He pauses, and then adds, "Where do you even get this from?”

                 “I read,” Ada says, but Chrom knew that part. “And there’s talk amongst the women at the bathhouse and whatnot. Comparing notes.”

                 “That part doesn’t surprise me,” Chrom says. “The men don’t talk about it like that, though… we don’t _compare notes_ , or go into detail. It’s more bragging. Mostly it’s just making fun of each other.”

                “Uh huh,” Ada says. She’s not surprised, either.

                “Where did you get this specifically, though?” Chrom asks. “The… pegging thing.”

                 Ada pauses, considering.

                 “Miriel,” she says. “We had lunch and got to talking. You know she has Vaike trying everything under the sun.” Ada does little air quotes with her fingers. She adds: “For science.”

                 Chrom snorts.

                 “There’s a mental image I could live without,” he says.

                 “Well, it’s just an idea,” she reminds him.

                 “If I think about it and decide to,” he reminds her. 

                 Ada chuckles, and she sets her book aside to scoot down next to him. He shifts onto his side and hooks an arm around her waist, pulling her in close, her back to his chest. She fits just under his chin.

                 “If you think about it,” she agrees. His breath his warm on her scalp. “I think you’d like it, though.” 

                 Chrom chuckles into her hair, somewhat disbelieving, and he slides a hand under the hem of her nightshirt just to span his fingers over bare flesh.

                 “We’ll see.”

 

* * *

 

                Both of them spend most of the next day in and out of council meetings and various consultations. Times of peace are far more boring than times of war, in some selfish, personal way: Chrom’s days are timed practically to the minute, and without battles to strategize, Ada’s presence in meetings is somewhat unnecessary. Instead, she is busy with matters of the estate, boring work with tolls and tenants, which is a job that she oversees largely because she is married to him rather than because she cares much for it. Chrom concerns himself largely with the affairs of the realm, with the ministers and treasurers and sometimes representatives of his subjects. Ada prefers not to be involved as much in those things: they have a good marriage, but their politics aren’t so compatible all the time.

                In the time before dinner, they see each other exactly twice: once by chance when Ada steps out from a meeting early and they pass each other in the hall, and again when they meet for a stroll in the gardens.

                In the privacy of the garden, Chrom glances around them to be sure there isn’t even so much as an errant bumblebee in earshot, and only when he’s sure the coast is clear does he ask: “What do you even do about the…” Chrom looks for the word. “Lack of… armaments…”

                Ada laughs. 

                 “I’m starting to seriously wonder about your education,” she says. “What do you think happens? There’s a dildo.”

                 “You don’t even remember your education, and you know more than I do,” he sighs. “And I KNOW but… I just don’t understand how it works.”

                 “I don’t know more than you, really,” Ada says, “I think that one’s just common sense.”

                 He doesn’t seem so sure.

                 “Have you ever seen one?” Chrom asks. “A… toy?”

                 “A dildo?” Ada clarifies, just to see his reaction, and Chrom glances over his shoulder again.

                 “Please stop saying it,” he repeats, in more hushed tones. “It’s a _toy._ ”

                 “I have seen a dildo,” Ada says. 

                 “ _Where?_ ” He’s surprised. So surprised that he doesn’t even stop to be exasperated with her language, which she thinks is funny.

                 “Uh, we know a lot of women who have them.”

                 “Who?” Chrom asks, almost incredulous, largely without thinking. It’s funny to watch the antics of his face: eyebrows lifted, eyes round with surprise, _wonder_. Women he knows and fights alongside own _toys_. It seems like a revelation to him. He is obviously far too coddled by a life of royalty, Ada figures. 

                 She wonders what ridiculousness she has to look forward to with her looming pregnancy.

                 “I’m not telling you that,” Ada says. “It was in confidence!”

                 Chrom still looks surprised.

                 “ _Really?_ ” he says, still more trapped on the thought that he apparently knows women who own toys. And then he grows somewhat serious, maybe even seriously concerned: “Do _you_ have one?”

                Ada snorts.

                “No,” Ada says. And she adds, speculatively: “Yet.” 

                 His concern is palpable. He reaches to touch a nearby flowering bush, as if he’s suddenly taken up an interest in botany and his concern is more for the blossoms’ perfection than the prospect of his wife railing him with a toy. Gods, he’s always such an easy read.

                 “Well,” he says, and he sounds apologetic already. “Maybe not, because I… well, I don’t think I want to do it.”

                 “That’s okay,” Ada says. 

                 “Are you sure?” he asks.

                 He’s so genuine about it that she almost coos at him, but she stifles a laugh instead, and she reaches up to cup his cheek in her hand.

                 “It was just an idea, love,” she says. “What did you think I’d say?”

                 He laughs a little, putting his hand over hers and leaning in close, and then he shifts her hand so he can kiss her palm.

                 “I don’t know,” he admits. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about it all this morning, to the point where I was worried I’d blurt out something about it at the council meeting.”

                 Ada laughs again, and Chrom does, too.

                 “Hey,” he says, still laughing. “I’m serious.”

                 And then Frederick calls them from the doors to the garden, beckoning them in for lunch. Chrom laces his fingers with hers and together they head in, and Frederick sighs when the two of them need a moment to compose themselves.

 

* * *

 

                In bed that night, while settling down to sleep, Chrom brings it up again.

                “Where would you even get something like that?” he asks.

                “Like what?”

                 He looks at her so plainly that she can’t help but smirk.

                 “I’m not going to say it,” he says. “You know.”

                 Of course she knows. She sits up a little more against the headboard, book in-hand, as always. 

                 “From a shop, I guess. Or a merchant who specializes in them.”

                 Chrom snorts.

                 “What kind of shop would sell those? Do you just walk in and ask for one the way you’d ask for a lance?”

                 “I guess,” she says, with a grin, “You go in, and you give the shopkeep a little wink, and you say ‘I’d like a _Shockstick_ , if you know what I mean.’”

                 Chrom laughs loudly, and she does too.

                 “That was bad,” he teases. “That’s practically Vaike-level humor.”

                 “Oh, shut up,” she says, pushing him by the shoulder. He resists the gesture, pushing back, and she squeals when he tweaks her breast in return, so she pinches his side, and just like that they’re tussling in bed like teenagers.

                 They carry on that way for a few minutes, and then when he’s managed to get a thigh between her legs and pinned her in place, she distracts him with a new question.

                 “Have _you_ ever seen one?”

                 “Uhh,” he stalls, leaning up over her on one elbow. She feels every breath he takes through the swell of his chest. “I’ve seen one in person once. Just once.”

                 “Really!” Ada laughs, too. “Do tell.”

                 Chrom drops his eyes, a laugh still on his breath, and his ears are a little red. They stand out like beacons against the cooler tones of his hair.

                 “When we were maybe sixteen or seventeen, a bunch of us went to the countryside, to visit one of our cottages for a few weeks -- just for the pleasure of it, I guess. Sully, Maribelle, Vaike, Stahl, Lissa and I, with Frederick and a few servants as chaperones. It was going well but then a bear got into the cottage when we were out on a hack. And…”

                 He laughs suddenly.

                 “The place was a disaster. It got all our food, but it also left our bags strewn everywhere, and when Frederick picked one of Maribelle’s bags up…”

                 Chrom’s almost choked speechless, the way he keeps trying to stifle a laugh.

                 “It rolled out…”

                 “Oh no,” Ada says. She’d clasp a hand to her mouth if she didn’t already have them both on his waistband, trapped between them.

                 “In front of everyone, too.”

                 “How did you even know what it was if you’d never seen one before?!” Ada asks.

                 “Oh, I _didn’t_ at first, but the shape of it, and the look on her face… it was obvious. You couldn’t imagine how funny it was. Frederick was mortified, he probably jumped a mile out of his boots, he wouldn’t stop apologizing for days. We didn’t let her forget about it the entire summer.”

                 “Poor Maribelle, that’s so mean,” Ada says, though she can’t help but laugh, too. “For shame, she probably wanted your heads.”

                 “Oh, she gave us hell,” Chrom says. He manages to compose himself a little more. “I’ll never forget the look on her face, though I think I’ve burned the _thing_ itself from my memory.”

                 “The dildo?” Ada asks, grinning.

                 Chrom gives her the best serious, disapproving look he can for the moment, but she can still see the traces of a smile around the corners of his mouth.

                 “I wonder if ‘dildo’ is considered crude in Ylisse,” Ada wonders aloud. “Is that why you don’t like it? I’ve also heard them called ‘slippers’ here. And even stranger, in Plegia, they call them pacifiers...”

                 “I’m not calling them anything,” he says, his smile coming back. He picks up a pillow and playfully puts it between their faces like a shield. “You’re corrupting me with this filthy talk.”

                 “Now, now, my Lord,” Ada laughs, batting the pillow away. “You don’t feel threatened by them, do you? It’s just a slipper, it won’t hurt you.”

                 “Filthy,” he insists, but he’s still laughing. He abandons the pillow in favour of reaching for her face and capturing her in a distracting kiss, and, well, that’s perfectly fine by her.

 

* * *

 

                The next morning, Ada wakes up to him wrapped around her and lazily fingering her, so once she’s had her fun, she slides down the length of his body to return the favour.

                 Ada has never been with another man — to her recollection, anyway — but she likes to imagine that Chrom is probably more vocal than most, and maybe more prone to getting carried away. He moans and moans away, one hand raking through her hair before fisting at the base of her ponytail, his other hand always either balled in the sheets or his fingers in his own mouth. If they didn’t have such expansive quarters, she imagines the other residents of the castle would quickly tire of her and Chrom’s shenanigans…. but _mostly_ Chrom’s.

                 You’d think you’d learn to keep it down after enough months on the war campaign, too, but Ada supposes that just isn’t Chrom’s style.

                 He likes it most in the mornings, too, stretched out on his back. He digs his heels against the mattress hard, and if she weren’t squarely between his thighs he would probably be lifting his knees high from the tension coursing through his lower body. Ada knows his every move in this way — when she bobs her head a little deeper, her lips meeting the hand she has wrapped around the base of his cock, he’ll pull her hair in a certain way and arch his back and then, with a complete lack of awareness, say her name out loud. It’s like clockwork.

                 He’s slow to orgasm, though, which is somewhat deliberate on her part; the longer she has him panting, the better the payoff is. The hand she keeps cupping his balls then starts to slide back, wet from both her mouth and his cock, running a few stripes up and down his ass crack. And then, only when he’s relaxed and pressing back against her hand, she gently touches the pad of her middle finger to his asshole.

                 And then Chrom stills for a second, and this particular morning, he seems far more aware than usual of specifics of what she’s doing.

                 “Ada,” he pants, and she slides her mouth from his cock.

                 “Okay?” she asks, with a deep breath.

                 “Y-yeah,” he replies, so she presses in slowly.

                The initial resistance is natural, Chrom digging his heels a little harder, but then she’s in to the first knuckle. She shifts focus back to the blow job again, up and down, bringing him to the back of her throat and then all the way out again. By time she has him worked back up to the edge, she’s gently moving her finger back and forth, and he’s thrusting forward into her mouth and thrusting back against her hand. 

                 When he tenses up to come, she slides her finger deeper and towards her. _Come hither._

                 It’s only a little pressure, but when she does that, Chrom tightens like a coil. She glances up at him and he’s just lost, head thrown back into the pillows, chest heaving, abdomen tensing up. He has both hands in her hair, suddenly, practically clutching her head. Just looking at him like this makes her want to crawl back up and ride him, but no, she’s still got a finger up his ass and this is practically her best yet.

                 “Ugh,” Chrom gasps. “Oh, gods.”

                 Even when he’s finished coming, Ada keeps working him until he’s a sloppy, panting mess, his now-flaccid cock oozing against his own belly. His bangs are slicked to his forehead, and he presses his ass back against her hand like he can’t get enough.

                 She realizes she’s panting, too.

                 When she finally withdraws her finger, he looks down at her with heavy-lidded eyes, lips parted. He shudders when she gently runs her hands along his thighs.

                 “Do you always do that?” he asks, breathily.

                 “Yes; how do you not know that?” Ada laughs, breathy too, and she crawls up alongside him. She kisses him, and given he still has a hand on the back of her head, he pulls her closer to deepen that kiss, which makes her laugh a little more when he lets her go. “That into it, huh?”

                 “Shh,” he tells her.

                 They laze for a few minutes to catch their breath, and then they slip off to bathe. By time Ada is ready and dressing for yet another day of bookkeeping and tax records, Chrom is still lounging in the tub with a satisfied look on his face and his feet up on the edge.

                 “Ada?” he asks.

                 She pokes her head back into their bath room. He looks up at her, and he takes so long to say anything that she leans against the doorway to watch him and wait. Whatever, she can spare another moment just to look at him, he’s handsome enough.

                 “Maybe we could get one anyway,” he says, finally, maybe a little too casually.

                 “A what?” Ada asks, just to be coy.

                 He snorts. She’ll never give him a break.

                 “A dildo,” he says.

                 Ada laughs.

                 “Sure,” she says.

 

* * *

 

                They take their afternoon walk to the stables instead of in the gardens today. It’s a light afternoon, so there’s time for a ride.

                “Where do we get one, seeing as we can’t really go to a store?” Chrom says. He’s got that cagey look in his eye and he’s still not going to say the word outside the bedroom any time soon; Ada isn’t sure why she expected otherwise.

                 (Maybe because he’s an adult and is about to become a father, but, well, Ada knows Chrom like the back of her hand. He’s not likely to change his ways that quickly.)

                 “Get a what?” Ada says, peering at him over her horse’s back. There isn’t much time to tease, as Frederick has only stepped away from them for a moment, but she doesn’t care.

                 “Where do we get _one_?” he repeats, shooting her a look.

                 Ada looks at him, and then pointedly looks at Frederick in the doorway. Chrom pales and ducks behind his horse as subtly as he can. _Oh._

                 “What do you need, milord?” Frederick asks.

                 “His horse might have a loose shoe,” Ada says.

                 “Which one?” Frederick asks, striding over and running a hand alongside Chrom’s horse as he goes.

                 “Ask me again how well I know horses,” Ada replies, and Frederick gives her a wry look.

                 “Given how much time the Ylissean army spends in the saddle, it would behoove you to learn more, perhaps,” Frederick says. “We do not have many foot soldiers as Ferox does, and they use flying mounts in Plegia…”

                 Ada doesn’t care to remind him that she’s travelled with the army to Ferox and back, all around Ylisse and then to Plegia and back, so instead she lets him have his lecture. Frederick is very fond of his horses, and denying him an opportunity to prattle about war from horseback is almost cruelty.

                 Frederick checks each foot on Chrom’s horse, and he pauses at one to fuss at how a stableboy hasn’t cleaned the frog of the hoof well enough.

                 “It’s fine,” Chrom says, finally. “Let’s just ride.”

                 “Where to today, milord?” Frederick asks.

                 “West, maybe,” Chrom says. “We’ll see how far we get.”

                 Frederick will tell them precisely when to turn around, anyway.

                 So off they go, Ada and Chrom up ahead and Frederick lagging behind as a courtesy. Ada imagines she and her husband are more than capable of holding their own if they were to come across trouble, but Frederick’s presence is an easy formality, and it’s far less trouble to allow it. Besides, Frederick has picked the eldest of his several warhorses today, so Frederick is hardly alone on his slow old friend.

                 “It’ll be a shame when we can’t have afternoon rides like this anymore,” Chrom says as they reach the outskirts of the castle grounds and head into the woods.

                 Ada glances at him. 

                 “Oh,” she says after a moment. “You mean when I’m too pregnant to ride.”

                 “Yeah,” Chrom nods. “I like this. It’s nice.”

                 “It’ll only be for a little while,” Ada says, and though she doesn’t have much love for the saddle, she knows she’ll miss it, too. “We’ll just have to take more garden walks for our afternoon dates.”

                 “But then those will have to stop, too,” he says. “Eventually.”

                 Ada laughs.

                “Chrom,” she says, pointedly. “I am pregnant, not helpless. Unless I am actively giving birth, I can go for walks, and even then moving around helps.”

                 He flushes a little.

                 “I know that,” he says.

                 “Do you even listen when the physicians are lecturing us?” Ada teases.

                 “Not really,” he admits. 

                 “Chrom,” she laughs.

                 He makes some sort of vague hand gesture, dropping the reins entirely, and Ada is sure that Frederick will have a minor aneurysm when he notices — she’s heard that lecture too many times before, how that will break contact with the horse and let the bit fall against the horse’s teeth. Neither Chrom nor Lissa are terribly proficient riders, even having grown up around horses.

                 “Now there’s an idea,” she says.

                 “What?”

                 “The court physicians,” Ada says in a leading tone, leaning back in the saddle.

                 “No,” Chrom says, pointedly.

                 Ada raises an eyebrow.

                 “Why not?”

                 “Because… no,” he says. And then, having thought of something better: “Do you have any idea how hard it is to be royalty _and_ a young man at the same time?" Chrom asks, voice lowering somewhat. "I managed to get through most of it without making too much of a fool of myself, so I'm not going to break that streak asking the physicians about something like that.”

                 “That’s silly,” Ada informs him, not lowering her voice.

                 Chrom gives her an unimpressed look. He glances back at Frederick, so Ada does too. Frederick is staring straight ahead, though not necessarily _watching_ them.

                 “It is,” she maintains.

                 “I won’t do it,” he says.

                 “Well, what would you rather do?”

                 “Milord,” Frederick says, and Chrom nearly (as he so colloquially put it before) jumps out of his boots.

                 “What?!” Chrom says.

                 “We ought to turn back,” Frederick says. “Lest you be late for your next meeting with council.”

                 “Alright,” Chrom says, turning his horse immediately and kicking into a jog. 

                 Ada is slower to turn, and Frederick waits for her.

                 “What is he after?” Frederick asks her.

                 “Something for your birthday,” Ada says. “Pretend you don’t have a clue, please.”

                 Frederick looks at her dubiously.

                 “I see,” he says. 

                Ada can’t help but laugh as she nudges her horse to speed up, and she catches up with her husband.

 

* * *

 

                That night, Chrom deliberately wakes her up at some ungodly hour in the morning. Ada groans and rolls away from him, groggily flapping a hand behind her to swat him away.

                 “Ada,” he says, in a hushed voice.

                 “Shh,” she grumbles.

                 “Sorry,” he says, “but I couldn’t sleep and I was thinking maybe one of our lady friends knows where to get one.”

                 She cracks her eyes open and cranes her neck to look at him, and through her bleary vision she sees him looking at her with such simple, earnest hope. _Gods._

                 “Did you just wake me up to ask me to talk to a ‘lady friend’ about where to find a dildo?” Ada asks him, this time a lot less grumbled and a lot more incredulous.

                 “Uh,” Chrom trails, “yes.”

                 “Since when do we call them ‘lady friends’?” Ada asks him. “Did you even finish that semester on etiquette?”

                 He doesn’t answer that, instead reaching to rearrange the blankets nicely around them, and he cuddles up as if that could make her less grouchy. (Which it does, but it’s also still something-in-the-morning o’clock.) He settles with his mouth by his ear, fingers gently brushing her hair from her face.

                 “ _Could you?_ ” he whispers.

                 “Goodnight, Chrom,” she retorts, shrugging his mouth off but staying put in his arms.

                 “Okay, goodnight,” he whispers. “I love you.”

                 Of course, it takes her thirty minutes to get back to sleep, especially with his dick pressed against her ass. Still, she loves him, even if she wants to push him out of bed sometimes.

 

* * *

 

                He is up early, and she isn’t. She’s not sure whether to kiss him or berate him for letting her sleep late and make her late to the meetings she didn’t want to attend _anyway_. When she finally sees him that morning, it’s when he slips into the privacy of her estate office. Somehow he’s both shaken Frederick and caught her when her assistants are at lunch, so in his playful way he wraps an arm around her as she sits at her desk. He presses a kiss to the side of her neck and takes her hand to lace his fingers to hers.

                “Where do you want to meet for lunch?” Chrom asks, brightly. He’s hoping she’s forgotten last night, which she hasn’t, but she lets him have it because he has a way of making her melt.

                 “I can’t today,” she says, maybe a little regretfully. “I’ve already got lunch plans.”

                 He looks notably disappointed, but he still keeps his arm around her.

                "Oh," he says. "Who are you having lunch with?"

                Ada smiles tightly.

                "A lady friend," she says. 

                He's quiet for a beat, and then he repeats: "Oh." Ada just smiles, turning her eyes down to her papers.

                "I suppose that's a fair enough reason," he says, his disappointment faded, and he leans in to press another kiss to her cheek. He lingers close, afterwards, too, chin over her shoulder, his arms still wrapped around her from behind. She closes her eyes and tilts her head to lean her temple against his.

                "Do you want to come?" Ada asks, just to be polite. She knows what the answer will be, and sure enough, there is is, almost immediately.

                "No, no," he says.  

                "She's going to know," Ada warns him. "You don't want to know who knows?"

                 "Whoever she is, I would like to look her in the eye for the rest of my life," Chrom replies. "And I will absolutely not be able to do that if all I can think of is her sitting with us at lunch having a conversation like that."

                 "Suit yourself," she replies, amused, and he kisses her cheek once again before gently pulling away. She continues: "Does it bother you that I keep teasing you? I hope I’m not turning you off the whole thing.”

                 Chrom chuckles.

                 “It makes me a little nervous, maybe,” he says, "but you've never led me astray before, so I don't mind."

                "Good," Ada says. “Just tell me if I go too far, okay?”

                “You worry too much,” Chrom tells her, somewhat ironically. And then, leaning back in for the briefest second, he whispers: “It turns me on.”

                 She laughs, loud but loving, and she leans over to press a hard kiss to the corner of his mouth.

                 “Get back to work,” she says.

                “As you wish,” he says, and with a last squeeze to her shoulder, off he goes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

                The ride out to the countryside to her lady friend’s family estate would take more time than Ada would generally like to spend in the saddle, especially just for lunch, so it’s quite fortunate, in her mind, that Maribelle has taken up so much work with the magistrate. 

                The Royal Courts of Justice are a crisp ride outside the castle walls and through the town, and Ada rather enjoys it despite having Frederick as an escort once more, but then again, perhaps that is not so bad either. She and Frederick have grown quite tolerable of each other since the wedding — call it giving in or call it a grudging acceptance, but both of them have accepted that their lots are both with Chrom, and so their lots will be together until the end. They chat most of the way, mostly about politics, which is a topic they are surprisingly very agreeable on. 

                 And then, when that topic dwindles, he offers a new one:

                 “This is quite unusual for you, to make plans so last minute,” Frederick remarks. “And you decline Maribelle’s offer for tea so often.”

                 “She’s sweet, but a little bit of her goes a long way,” Ada says. 

                 “She has a lot of personality, that is for sure,” Frederick says. “And a lot of opinions, and a lot of… well, everything.”

                 “She really does.” Ada pauses, and then asks: “You’ve known her for a long time, right? Was she like that when she was a child, too?”

                 “She has been one of Lord Chrom’s friends since childhood,” Frederick says. “Sully, Vaike, Stahl, the rest of them. She used to be just as rowdy as the rest of them, too, but she took growing up quite seriously. She used to push Lord Chrom in the mud and then lecture him on his language when he retorted.”

                 Ada is so charmed by this mental image that it strikes her memory, suddenly, that Frederick once leapt from his boots at the sight of Maribelle’s dildo, and _that_ mental image draws a sudden laugh from her.

                 Frederick raises an eyebrow at her.

                 “Sorry,” Ada says.

                 He stays in stony silence for the rest of the ride. At the gates of the courthouse, he dismounts first and moves to help her dismount, but she is already sliding from the saddle.

                 “You mustn’t exert yourself,” he scolds her, because he can never resist the urge to be fussy. His eyebrows frown deeply. “If you landed poorly you could fall and injure yourself _and_ the child.”

                 “Frederick,” she sighs, and then she moves right along, handing him the reins and then stripping her riding gloves from her hands one after the other. “I will be a few hours, I think. Will you be coming to get me, or can I be trusted to ride back alone in such a _delicate_ condition?”

                 “I will send for you myself if Lord Chrom is not available,” Frederick says, though Ada knows Frederick will come whether her husband is available or not.

                 “I will see you in a few hours, then,” Ada replies.

                 “Very well,” Frederick says, but he hands off the reins to a waiting valet and sees her all the way up the stairs and through the grand doors of the courthouse before she finally shoos him away.

                 Maribelle’s father’s office is upstairs, Ada knows, and though she’s not sure if Maribelle does her work in the same office, she heads in that direction anyway. At the end of the hall she realizes it is not the case, but fortunately, she is intercepted by Maribelle herself, who calls to her from the top of the grand center staircase. 

                 “My dear Ada!” she says. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”

                 “With Frederick fussing and slowing me down, I didn’t think I would, either,” Ada says, turning in that direction. When Ada reaches the top of the stairs, Maribelle pulls her into a firm embrace and kisses both of her cheeks.

                 “That Frederick,” Maribelle huffs, and she gives Ada a cursory inspection, a smile her only judgment. “If he doesn’t have you huffing and puffing doing push-ups in the dirt, he’s fussing so much that you’re delayed. Though I’ve certainly missed the Shepherds this past while, I most certainly do not miss his nonsense.”

                 “Trust me,” Ada says, “It has only gotten worse lately.”

                 “I’m not surprised,” Maribelle says. “Well! Let’s not waste another word on him, then. I have tea waiting, and the servants — well, _apprentices_ — will have lunch for us shortly.”

                 She touches a hand to the small of Ada’s back to guide her down the hall, and then she links her elbow with Ada’s in that easy, ladylike way of hers. Ada just smiles.

                 “Well, I’m happy you could see me today, despite the short notice.”

                 Maribelle laughs, high and melodious. 

                 “Not at all! Of course Lissa’s sister-in-law is a sister of mine, you know,” she says. “Especially since your messenger said you had some urgent personal matters to ask me about, you know I can always make time for that.”

                “I appreciate that,” Ada says, and she has never been so pleased that Maribelle is such an easy confidante. “I just hope it’s not too presumptuous.”

                 Maribelle quirks a finely-shaped eyebrow and smiles. She opens the door to her office.

                 “Try me,” Maribelle says, holding the door for Ada. 

                 Ada glances at her, lingering in the doorway. No sense in being delicate, she supposes, not when Maribelle always puts such a fine edge on things.

                 “I’m wondering where one might acquire a dildo,” Ada says.

                 “For you?” Maribelle asks.

                Ada’s sure the look on her face gives it away, either the broadening smile or the slightest bit of mischief or the way she meets Maribelle’s gaze.

                There’s a twinkle in Maribelle’s eye, and then she laughs again.

                 “Well, I can certainly help with that,” she says.

                 Maribelle simply gestures Ada out of the way, and then she closes the door behind them.

 


	2. Thinking, Planning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ada gets a lead from Maribelle, Chrom waits anxiously to get that dildo, and Frederick runs circles around them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever start writing things and then get carried away with ideas, so you start expanding on the idea almost indefinitely, but then you don't want it to get too long/distracted from the main idea, so you cut a lot of it, but it still ends up long, and then you decide you'd rather publish it than fuss forever?
> 
> Anyway, that's the story of how this is going to be three parts instead of two.
> 
> Also, there are a handful of references to Herodas' Mime VI in here; it's a 3rd century BCE play where two women gush about a local dildo maker's crafts. Do you ever just love something so much you have to talk about it? Yeah, that too.

.

 

                Maribelle’s office is warm and inviting, not for its architecture but for the fact that Maribelle has so clearly and obviously redecorated it for her own purposes. The high ceilings are arched with minimal scrollwork carvings, and the walls are plain stone, but she has had tapestries in pink and gold hung on every wall, and the broad windowsill has a garden’s worth of flower pots and planets sitting in the afternoon sun. The desk is organized meticulously, the high-backed chair has been reupholstered recently, and the drapes are new and thick with cartridge pleats.

                Ada is directed to make herself comfortable, so she sits on one of the couches. The coffee table has plates of little finger sandwiches and bowls of olives and pickles and a whole assortment of other fineries laid out, and there is a nice bottle of wine right in the center.

                “I just got that from the lady of a neighbouring duchy,” Maribelle says, as Ada picks it up to look at the label. “Lovely woman. We’ve been meeting for suppers lately, and despite the travel it’s been a fine little thing. She grows her own, you know.”

                “Grapes?” Ada clarifies.

                “Yes,” Maribelle says. “If you like it, I can ask her to send some to your table. I’m quite sure she’d be honoured.”

                “Thank you,” Ada nods. “What’s her name?”

                “Miranda,” Maribelle says. “You should know her, I think — she presides over Southtown.”

                “Ah, yes,” Ada says. She knows. “I’m happy for you.”

                Maribelle almost looks a little smug, and she takes the wine bottle and sits down across from Ada to pour two glasses.

                “I should be the one happy for you,” she says. “Getting adventurous! And even if you have an opinion on  _everything_ , you’re always so mum about  _your_ sex life, and Chrom turns into a gibbering idiot on the topic. I thought it’d never happen.”

                Ada purses her lips for a second and then smiles.

                “I’m just a private person,” she says. “As for him, I think he had a funny experience on a camping trip.”

                Maribelle looks plenty amused.

                "He told you about that little incident, did he?" she says, she seems perfectly shameless about it. Things have changed, she supposes, but then again, Ada feels correct in her initial assumption that Maribelle would be a fair friend to consult, her history with Chrom standing.

                "He did," Ada laughs. "He was so red in the face I thought he'd burst. And I thought, you know, if anyone would have one at that age, it'd probably be you."

                Maribelle's smile broadens a little.

                “Well, I did, but between you and me, darling, that one wasn't mine."

                Ada raises an eyebrow.

                "Really? Whose was it, then?"

                Maribelle takes a curt sip of wine and then places her glass gently on the glass tabletop.

                "A lady doesn't name names," Maribelle says, "but she does save her friend from humiliation whenever possible."

                Ada laughs.

                "You're a good friend, Maribelle,” she says. "The absolute best a girl could ask for in that situation, no doubt."

                "I do try," she says. "And I hope that I can be of some assistance to you, as well..."

                 "I was going to talk to Miriel first," Ada says, "but she's out of the capital for some days, and I figured... Well, we've always been pretty candid about these things."

                 “We certainly have," Maribelle says, "And better me than Miriel, I think — she gets so clinical! And having spent enough time alongside Vaike, I loathe having that mental image creep up on me."

                 "But you don't mind Chrom?" Ada asks, amused.

                 "Not at all," Maribelle says. "Chrom is a gentleman, and he wouldn't want to foist all the details on me like CERTAIN OTHERS do in conversation — that kind of humility is good. It's the first thing you should expect from a man, I think. Was this his idea?"

                 "Mine," Ada replies.

                 "And obviously you have him eating out of your hand."

                 "I don't know if I'd put it that way," Ada says, leaning back into the couch. "It took coaxing to even get to this point, but I think he's looking forward to it. Maybe shy isn't the right word, but you know what I mean."

                 "All men get like that when it comes to that," Maribelle says, and she does this thing where she scowls and looks to the side -- the closest a 'real' lady can get to rolling her eyes, Ada imagines. Maribelle adds: "There's many reasons I don't bother with men much, but that's one of them – they're so fussy, so concerned about manhood that they don't know what's good for them. I imagine Chrom is better than most, but my patience for it isn't what it used to be.”

                 Ada’s seen Maribelle argue with enough of their male comrades to know this is painfully, blisteringly true.

                "Do you think you'll ever marry?" Ada asks, thoughtfully.

                 "Well, I must settle eventually if I expect to have a child," Maribelle says, "But it'll take whoever I choose a long time to prove himself worthy of that, I think. Until then, I have no qualms dismissing any cad who comes my way thinking I will tolerate any _nonsense_."

                 "You shouldn't have to settle, though. I mean in general — you can't just have a child, you still have to keep the man."

                Maribelle pauses, but only because she seems to have noticed a spot of dirt on the finger of one of her otherwise spotless white gloves. She picks it up to thumb at it gently, but the mark is there.

                 "It's never settling when it's what you want," Maribelle says, easily. "I'm not like you and Chrom; I'm not concerned for love, or growing old together. I want a perfect child of good breeding, and that is that."

                 Ada smiles, and she finishes her first glass of wine already. Almost thoughtlessly, Maribelle picks up the wine bottle and refills the glass, and then her own -- such a good hostess.

                 "But that's off-topic," Maribelle says. "Do either of you even know what you want?"

                 "From a dildo?" Ada asks.

                 Maribelle's smile tightens.

                 “We call them slippers," she says, pointedly. “But yes.”

                 "I don't have a clue," Ada says. "Nor does he, obviously. It's not like either of us have seen enough to know. I did have that one book that Miriel lent me, that one study on men's erogenous zones, but I didn't get to finish it, and it wasn't exactly erotic..."

                 Maribelle pauses, and then sets aside her napkin to stand. She crosses the office to her desk, and upon producing a small brass key she opens one of the drawers.

                "You keep one here?" Ada asks, both surprised and thrilled by Maribelle's bravado.

                 "You never know!" Maribelle says, voice rising a little, though she seems proud, too. "Sometimes I stay late with work and that's no reason to go unsatisfied for a night."

                 "You're incredible," Ada just says, laughing and shaking her head. "I love it."

                 Maribelle brings a small wooden box over, and she sets it on the low table as she sits back down. She removes the lid, revealing to Ada a modestly sized dildo -- _slipper_ \-- made from polished ivory, the handle wrapped in pink leather with white saddle stitching, resting upon a pillow of velvet.

                 "It's lovely," Ada says. "Lovelier than the others I've seen, certainly."

                 "They're rarely as pretty as this," Maribelle agrees, somewhat fondly, and she takes it out and offers it to Ada, who accepts it gingerly. "Oh, don't be shy, it is clean."

                 Ada laughs. It is smooth in her hands, and lighter than she expected.

                 "Why is it called it a slipper?" Ada asks, finally. It's been bothering her for days.

                 "Because they slip," Maribelle laughs. "And because most cheap ones come from shoemakers!"

                 "So every time I've ever been to the cobbler, they have these somewhere in their back room?" Ada asks.

                 "Most likely," Maribelle says, and she giggles and then touches her fingers to her own lips to shush herself. "The best come from merchants from Plegia, but with trade routes in such miserable disarray, it's been difficult to find them, let alone find them at a good price."

                 "Oh, gods," Ada says, and then she laughs. "Chrom could fix that. He doesn't even know it, but he's working on fixing that right now."

                Maribelle laughs again, this time with abandon.

                "If only he knew how much the women of Ylisse depend on him!" she says. "That's too funny."

                 "He'll be mortified," Ada says. "He's still wrapping his head around the fact that women even own them, and I don't think he's even considered they _use_ them. Just that _he_ is alright with trying it."

                "What a gentleman," Maribelle snickers. "He'll take it on for us all, won't he, ensuring Ylissean women only have the finest?”

                 They have a good laugh at that.

                 "So until my illustrious husband saves the populace from the horrors of war," Ada asks, "where do I find this slippermaker?"

                 Maribelle composes herself again with a sip of wine.

                 "Well, _for now,_ I am sending you to a slippermaker named Kerdon. He is here in Ylissetol, so it’ll be convenient, and his work is acceptable enough for a first, I think. Not really befitting a king, but it'll have to do," Maribelle says. "Kerdon is from Plegia originally, I think, and though we don't have the nice woods they use there, he does a good enough job with ivory and leather."

                 "Does he have a shop?" Ada asks. _The shoe-and-dildo shop, come one, come all._

                 "Not any longer," Maribelle says. "The taxes were too much, I think, and the sale of these things is shady enough as it is, so he sells from home now, undercover."

                Ada wonders, vaguely, if she's ever had his papers across her desk and judged him for tax evasion, but it's all a blur. She’s not sure what she’ll do if his works are good but his papers come across her desk again.

                "His workmanship is wonderful, though -- there will never be a man alive with a prick so firm, and his strapping,  _darling_ , the leather is so buttery and supple, you could mistake it for fine wool. There is no better in Ylisstol."

                 "So we just drop by his home and ask for one of these wonderful slippers?" Ada asks.

                 "Naturally," Maribelle says. "Who turns away nobility? He won't mind at all."

                 "So every noblewoman _already_ patronizes him?" Ada asks.

                 What a small world nobility is, and always shrinking.

                 Maribelle almost looks exasperated.

                 "Honestly, darling, I know you're not much for a life of royalty and socials with the other ladies of court, but any one of them could have pointed you in the right direction if you spent more time," she sighs. "You're to be our queen when Chrom finally takes the throne, and if you just work all the time, you'll miss out on being able to enjoy it!”

                 "I'm not exactly a blue-blood," Ada says. "I just feel like I need to be useful."

                 "Oh, you earned your keep when you not only won the war with Plegia but made him happy enough to make you his wife," Maribelle says, and she gestures around her office. "Look, I am hardly the picture of a woman who sits around looking pretty and beflowered all day, but even I know the value of a good social life."

                 Ada’s not so sure, but then she realizes she still has Maribelle's dildo in her hand, so she sets it back on its little velvet pillow.

                 "I know what you mean," Ada says. And, sensing Maribelle isn’t terribly keen on this answer, she adds: "And I'll try."

                 "Good," Maribelle replies, and she seems satisfied, because she moves right back to business. “Now, get a nice slipper like this one. Perhaps not quite so bulbous at the head, but if that's what you want, you could get it like that anyway — Chrom may balk at the size, but if you don't tell him, I doubt he will know the difference."

                 Ada chuckles.

                 "I'm not going to buy it alone," Ada says. "He's going to come with me for that, at least."

                 "Good luck," Maribelle laughs. “Oh, and tell the slippermaker who it is for, if you can't convince Chrom to come along. The slippermaker will need to know anyway, you know. There are different slippers for different..."

                Maribelle pauses.

                 "Holes."

                 Ada nearly aspirates her wine.

                 "I had no idea," she says.

                 "Well, better that you do!" Maribelle says. "Certainly better that you do. And what made you so curious about this in the first place?”

                 Ada laughs.

                 “I don’t know. Something different, I guess? And well, look at him...”

                 They carry on like this for what feels like eternity. Ada loses track of time, and before she knows it, there's a knock at the door. Maribelle answers it.

                "Your escort is here to get you," Maribelle says, glancing back at Ada before exchanging a few more words with the assistant. Ada gets up and retrieves her coat herself, and by time she has it on, Maribelle is offering her the last bit of wine, which she refuses.

                 "I think I'm tipsy enough as it is," Ada says, "Frederick's going to know and inform me of a thousand scenarios in which I might trip or run my horse into a window or something to harm the baby.”

                 "Then you'll need it to deal with Frederick," Maribelle says curtly, and Ada laughs and takes the wine anyway. 

                 Out of the office and down the stairs they go, again arm-in-arm. Once at the bottom, Maribelle reaches to her again, and in that firm, matronly way she takes Ada by the forearms and faces her directly, and she says: “Now, we are going to have lunch more often! And next time, if you can coax him, bring Chrom. We don’t need to talk about these things all the time but he could do well to open up more and be honest about these things. He’s a good man but being a good man does not stop him from being a stubborn one, after all!”

                 Ada smiles, largely grateful but also at the absurdity of it. She imagines this is the dozenth time she has let Maribelle just talk _at_ her today, but for once she doesn’t mind it. It’s _educational_.

                She'll have to put it to use soon, too. Not quite the way Maribelle does, but in Chrom's way, certainly.

                 “I think that’d be good,” she says.

                 “It would be perfect,” Maribelle agees. “Now, let’s get you back to your husband!”

                 So back down the stairs they go, across the grand lobby and to the great front doors. Maribelle sees her right to the front steps, and as they step into the bright sunshine of the late afternoon, Ada raises a hand to shield her eyes from the light. Maribelle laughs.

                 “Look who came to visit,” Maribelle says, warmly.

                 There's Chrom at the gates of the courts, still mounted. He's dressed more or less the same as he was this morning, save for the cape, but at the yard's distance and astride a big white horse, he seems that much more regal and handsome. The close cut of his dark navy jacket accentuates the broadness of his shoulders to the trimness of his waist. The cuffs of his jacket are pressed and adorned with gold buttons. His red cape is fastened with twin brooches of gold and his breeches are pristine white and tightly fitted to his thighs when he sits forward in the saddle. He’s talking with Frederick, eyes away from the front steps.

                After all the talk of the afternoon, she’s instantly struck by the notion that she would  _happily_ peel his clothes from his body with her teeth alone.

                Ada calls his name and he smiles at her like he hasn't seen her for days.

                 "May I ride with you?" she calls from halfway down the walk, and Chrom just smiles and glances back to Frederick, who busies himself with arrangements for Ada's horse.

                 When she reaches his side, he offers his hand to her, and she thoughtlessly presses a kiss to his knuckles. When she looks up at him, she stares into those deep blue eyes, and he looks down at her with _such_ fondness. 

                 "Good lunch?" he asks.

                 "Divine," she says. "Very good wine, too."

                  "I can see that," he says, amused. "Front or back?"

                 “Back," she says, and he shifts forward in the saddle. "I'm surprised you came."

                 She doesn't feel she has to remind him why, but then he looks up, off to the courthouse's door, where Maribelle is standing primly as ever. Ada glances back, too, just in time to see Maribelle wave, white-gloved and smug. 

                 “She’s been there the whole time; didn’t you see her?” Ada tells him when his mouth hangs open.

                 "I don't know, I… I only had eyes for you!” he says, ever the awkward romantic. He tears his eyes from Maribelle, who still lingers by the door. _Revenge_ , Ada's sure, _to watch him squirm_.

                 One of the valets has already fetched a mounting block, so Ada helps herself up before Frederick can make it over to help. Chrom offers her a hand for balance and she boosts herself up into the saddle, leaving Frederick hovering behind her with his hands up, as if he could invisibly lift her from a foot away.

                 Chrom settles back in the saddle again a little, putting him _almost_ in her lap, and Ada slides her arms around his waist to deliberately press herself to him, the inside of her thighs against his ass. 

                 He glances back at Maribelle one last time, as if to check if she’s still watching, and his ears burn a little red when she _is._

                 "Whatever is the matter, milord?" Frederick asks, somewhat unimpressed. 

                 "Nothing," Chrom says, and he shifts forward in the saddle a little.

                 "There's a whole lot of that lately," Frederick says.

                 “He told me a funny story about Maribelle the other day," Ada says. “He just saw her and remembered it again, I’m sure.”

                 That gets a sudden laugh out of Chrom.

                 “Oh, don’t you even start,” Chrom warns. And then: “Let’s go, Frederick!”

                 Frederick looks annoyed. He turns on his heel and marches to his horse, mounting with his usual efficacy plus a little snap of his eyes back to them once he’s mounted. _Suspicious._

                 “I guess it’s not as bad that it’s Maribelle,” Chrom says to her, under his breath. “It could be worse.”

                 “Who, of all our friends, is worst-case scenario?” Ada asks, still with a laugh on her breath. Chrom nudges his horse into motion to follow Frederick’s lead, and when the horse moves, Chrom shifts in the saddle in a way that bumps him back against her.

                 He considers the question for barely a second.

                “Cordelia,” he says. “Absolutely, by far… Cordelia.”

                 Ada laughs. She doesn’t need to ask why.

                 “Tharja, too,” he adds. “She’d probably tell you the wrong things deliberately, or give you some sort of enchanted thing that hexes me, or she wants to _demonstrate,_ probably _on_ you _,_ or something along those lines.”

                 “How much thought have you put into this?” she asks.

                 “Too much,” Chrom says. “Too much.”

                 “You’re weird,” Ada says, and he chuckles and puts a hand overtop hers for an affectionate squeeze.

                 “Milord?” Frederick calls, dryly.

                “Yes?” Chrom says.

                 “If the two of you want privacy so you do not need to whisper constantly, I can follow behind at a distance,” he says.

                 “Oh, no, Frederick,” Chrom says. “It’s alright. We’re done.”

                 “Very well,” Frederick says. He still doesn’t sound so pleased. And then he adds, completely oblivious: “So what is Maribelle doing these days that is so funny?”

                 And then Ada can't help it; maybe it’s the wine, maybe she’s just tired of dancing around it, but she laughs, and laughs, and she can't stop laughing. Chrom turns in his seat to give her a horrified-yet-excited look, and Frederick looks at her as if she's lost her mind.

                 "I beg your pardon, milady?" Frederick asks, and suddenly he has an impending sense of dread in his tone.

                 “Chrom told me," Ada chokes out, "about the dildo. Maribelle's... Haha ha ha ha…"

                 Frederick instantly turns red, and it's his turn to shoot a horrified look at his Lord. At that, Chrom starts laughing, too — suddenly neither of them can help it, they're both rolling with laughter and Frederick is just steadily growing redder and redder, until he splutters: "That's... That's not what transpired, Ada!"

                Ada is wiping tears from her eyes, and Chrom is clutching his gut, leaning so far forward in the saddle that he might just tumble out of it. 

                 "The look on your face!" Chrom exclaims. "It's the EXACT same as when—"

                 "Enough!" Frederick scolds him, loudly and clearly mortified. "That— that is hardly discussion to be made in public, much less in front of a lady, think of your manners— and YOU!"

                 He rounds on Ada mid-sentence, still almost struggling to string that sentence together:

                 "Milord has misrepresented the situation, whatever he has told you, _it was nothing of the sort,_ and Lady Maribelle was very forgiving of the transgression, and it was–– _listen here, young lady!_ "

                 Too late. Both Chrom and Ada are lost again to peals of laughter, and Chrom does very nearly laugh himself right out of the saddle — only Ada’s arms around his waist keep him from pitching head over heels. Frederick just watches them, his anxiousness fading to mere frustration. With an irritated grunt, he slows his horse, deliberately dropping back some distance. 

                 “Too far, I think,” Chrom says, but he’s still trying to rein himself in.

                 "Oh, it won't kill him," she says. "A bit humility is good for him."

                 Chrom gives an amused huff. 

                "Yeah, it's probably fair," he says. "The look on his face, though..."

                 Chrom laughs again. Ada's sure that Frederick is grumbling behind them, but she doesn't dare look back. Instead, she leans forward the slightest bit more, and Chrom takes one hand off the reins for a moment to shift her hand a little lower, closer to his beltline, and well, that’s perfectly comfortable for her.

                "So how much does Maribelle know?" Chrom asks. "Just... so I know how long I have to live this down.”

                 "Oh, stop acting like it's something to be embarrassed about," she says. "She even wants you to join us for lunch sometime.”

                 “Never,” Chrom says. “Never ever.”

                 Ada laughs, and she leans against him so close that the fine hairs at the nape of his neck tickle her cheeks, and she presses a kiss there.

                 “She gave me so many good ideas,” she says, voice dropping a little.

                 Chrom pauses, but his interest is piqued — his hand on hers tightens a touch, and he glances back at her with a gauged look.

                 “Like?”

                 “That’s a surprise,” she says.

                 Ada slaps Chrom playfully on the thigh, and just because she can, she runs her hand down his leg to his knee afterwards. She feels him tense just slightly, and with his feet firmly in the stirrups, his thighs flex the tiniest bit with each stride the horse takes. 

                 “Stop that,” Chrom says, “That will _not_ end well when I am wearing riding pants.”

                 But he’s sitting well back into her lap, anyway, and every step the horse takes jostles them gently together. Ada just makes an amused noise when Chrom tugs down the bottom of his jacket at the front.

                 "All that matters is that we now know where to get one,” he says.

                 “One what?” she asks.

                 He laughs.

                 “I’m not going to survive this, am I?” he jokes. "So what's the verdict?" 

                 She just waits for him to balk.

                 "We have to go to a merchant," she says. "I know exactly who and where, so it's just a matter of _when_ we go."

                 "WE?" Chrom says, tentatively.

                 "He serves basically every noblewoman in Ylisse according to Maribelle, Chrom," she says, pointedly. "I don't think you have to worry about judgement."

                 "Every nobleWOMAN," he says. "So you don't need me there."

                 "Uh, who is this dildo for, again?" She asks him. Pointedly.

                 Chrom looks flustered for the millionth time, and his grip on her hand tightens. He thinks it over for a second, and then he says: “Well, as long as we have privacy.”

 

* * *

 

                They spend that evening at more separate meetings, and then a dinner with some other members of nobility that Ada tries a little harder to fit into, a few (unnecessary) hours of socializing after dinner with those same members of nobility, and then bed. By time Ada is bathed and hair washed and combed, Chrom is dozing off, and he wakes up only long enough for them to both get off, and then he’s right back to sleep again. Typical.

                 She sleeps late –– again –– and by time she’s fully awake, she’s alone in bed but she can hear him humming.

                 “Chrom?” she calls.

                 “Bathtub,” he calls back.

                 When she steps into the bath room, she finds Chrom sitting on the edge of the mostly-full tub, scrubbing himself down. He shifts as if he's going to glance back at her, but then he doesn't; he just resumes sudsing himself up, wringing out his washcloth over his shoulder and letting a stream of soap foam slide down the length of his back and down his ass crack. And over the floor, too. Charming. 

                 Ada chuckles.

                 "Do you need help, there, _my lord_?" she asks, crossing the floor to him and rolling up the sleeves of her nightshirt. "You're missing quite a few spots."

                 "And here I thought you were coming to complain about me using up the hot water," he says.

                 “You got me," she replies. “I just want to watch.”

                 Chrom laughs.

                 "Come join me, anyway. We'll use it up together."

                 Ada rolls her cuffs a few inches higher and then puts her hand out for his washcloth, which he gives her. She dips it in the water, wrings it out, and then runs it along his shoulders in a strong, firm stroke.

                 "If I can't get more hot water for _myself_ ," she says, "then I'm not quite sure what perks being the future Exalt's wife has." And then, running the cloth downward, she adds: "Other than having you, anyhow."

                 He just chuckles, and she lets her free hand wander along his spine, and then back up over the ridge of his shoulder blades. He sits up a little straighter, reaching up to loop his arm around her waist, and though he's soapy and wet, she lets him. The cotton of her nightgown sticks to him where they touch. He's content that way, to have her pet him down, the steam of the bath lulling them both into a heady calmness despite their banter. She dips the cloth again and runs it down his front, exploring the shape of his body, the slickness of his skin under soap and water. 

                 She likes his angles, the swell of his chest and the arc of his ribs, the straightness of his waist to his hips, the ripple of his abdomen when he stretches up to shift his arm on her, to pull her face to his. He pulls her into a kiss, deep and probing, and she squeezes the cloth against his chest so that the hot water dribbles down all over his cock. He grips her so close that her nightgown sticks damply to her skin, too.

                 “You’re getting me wet," she says, against his mouth, and they barely part, his strong nose still brushing against hers. She just lets the washcloth drag a little lower, warm and wet and gliding overtop his cock. It twitches at her touch and Chrom breathes in deeply. 

                 "Ada," he murmurs. 

                 He's getting worked up; she can hear it in every exhale, every inhale, his cock already hard in her hand. Her other hand palms over his ass, and she likes the brief tension of his glutes under her hand before he relaxes again.

                 "Do it," Chrom says, voice thick.

                 What he wants her to do, he doesn't specify, but Ada can guess. The tips of her fingers ghost along his crack, slick with soap, and when they settle on his asshole, he grips her forearm hard.

                 And then, with a sudden gasp, he comes in her hand.

                 Ada laughs, almost incredulous.

                "Did you just...?"

                 "I don't know!" he splutters, still breathing heavily, but he laughs, too.

                 "Chrom!" she laughs. "What are you, sixteen!?"

                 "I just... I got excited!" he retorts. "Let's just go get that stupid toy!”

                She teasingly reaches at him with her come-slick hand, which he takes in his hands to wash off in the bathwater. Ada just keeps laughing, and so does Chrom, and like any good-humored wife she finishes washing his back anyway while he peppers her with kisses and half-serious apologies. By the end of it, she's almost soaked to the skin with all their horsing around, and she leaves him to dry off and dress while she gets changed.

                 And of course, he always takes his time getting dressed, so Ada stretches out on their bed to wait for him, in hopes that they can leave their quarters together. They often do this on mornings where neither has an early meeting, it's a nice scrap of quiet time. 

                 Though the castle is large and home to hundreds without counting the trainees in the barracks, both Ada and Chrom like to keep their quarters as if it were an island. There’s precious little privacy in the life of a reigning prince, so they carve it out where they can. They both quite dislike having maids and servants in their quarters when they are there,  and Frederick and other high-ranking servants are banned until noon ("Unless there's an emergency, that is.") In the mornings, they can be in their separate dressing rooms, or one in the bath room and another in the bedroom, or someone in the parlor and another in the balcony, or anything along those lines, and all the while know it is just the two of them, comfortable and alone.

                 When the baby comes, it'll be three, but that's still many months away.

                 Eventually he comes out of his dressing room, still fastening the last few buttons on his waistcoat as he walks, and she looks at him and smiles. He smiles back. Though she’ll always love him in his gods-awful military uniforms more than anything else, he’s a handsome enough man that he can still look smart in courtly attire. He’s in peach today, the hems trimmed in white-gold embroidery and the buttons wrapped in matching silks.

                She’s sure he’d look good in anything, though. 

                "The maids left out the wrong cape for today," he says. "But I can't find the one I wanted."

                 "How are the maids supposed to know which of your several dozen white capes is the right one?" she asks, cheekily.

                 "I don't know," Chrom says. "But I took a look and they've re-organized everything again, so I don't know. This cape is meant to be attached to a baldric and those are in the armory, so I can't even wear this."

                 "You are very concerned about this considering your questionable taste in fashion,” she says, gesturing to his knee-length breeches and silk stockings. Those will look less silly when he has boots on.

                 Chrom laughs, and he flops down beside her.

                 “I don’t know, I just wear what Frederick orders from the tailors. And on that note,” he says, “there are also several pairs of _your_ trousers put away in my wardrobe.”

                 “Well, that’s not a hard mistake to make,” she says. “They _are_ men’s trousers.”

                “True,” Chrom says. “But I don’t have the hips for your trousers, so I feel it should still be pretty obvious.”

                 “Your pants are tighter than mine _everywhere_ ,” she says, teasing. And, not wanting to complain too much about the silver spoon that’s been thrust in her mouth since the wedding, she changes the topic from their house staff: "Does a queen have to be a fashion icon in Ylisse? Maribelle was concerned."

                 "I have no idea," Chrom says. "But I’d trust her judgement on that."

                 Ada rolls over onto her side, and she reaches to fuss with his collar. It's been starched to perfection, but it's popping up out of place, so she folds it back down. 

                "And I have that damned meeting with the delegates from Plegia tonight," Chrom says, suddenly. “And Frederick wants to run drills this weekend, and everyone’s visiting. Ugh. At this rate, I’ll be thinking about it forever before we can actually go get it.”

                 "Today is not going your way at all, is it?" Ada props herself up on one elbow, watching him scowl. "Wrong cape, wardrobe in disarray, reparations meetings _and_ coming too early. At this rate, you might as well just go back to bed."

                 Chrom laughs, maybe in a bit of a sarcastic way, but he reaches for her hand and winds his fingers around hers. They both lapse into silence for a moment, and Ada watches him close his eyes as if to go back to sleep. His hair is still a touch damp around the crown of his head, and his eyelashes are thick and dark. He smells of the lemon and peppermint soap they'd gotten as a gift from a village to the west, and the rise and fall of his chest is almost hypnotic. He runs his thumb across the side of her hand, back and forth, just light enough to be ticklish.

                In these quiet moments, she loves him in a very different way than she does when he is shouting and racing across the battlefield, or when he is sweeping her off (or to) her feet, or when he is driving her utterly insane with bad jokes and general silliness.

                 Even though it's getting to the time where people start getting antsy and Frederick starts pacing the hall outside their corridor, Ada scoots a little closer to him and lays her head on his shoulder, their hands together on his chest. He rests his cheek against the top of her head.

                 "You know, in a weird way, this whole thing is exciting," Chrom says.

                 "Hm?" she hums.

                 He opens his eyes again. He looks thoughtful.

                "We started sleeping together before we really started being romantic. So... it's been nice, all this running around and experimenting when we’re actually together."

                 Ada glances up at him, a little tickled. He looks at her, too, his smile almost boyishly warm. 

                "So it's like our first time together all over again?" she asks. "But this time, it’s romantic?"

                Chrom seems to stumble over how to reply, and then he says, "I didn't really think of it that way, but... yeah, I guess that's what I'm saying." He pauses. "Do you feel the same?"

                 He's always been the more sentimental of the two, and both of them know it, but Ada would be lying if she pretended it was just another thing for her. So, with a slight shrug of her shoulders and a smile, she replies: "I guess it is, too."

                 Chrom laughs.

                 "You guess?" he says. "Sheesh... that’s what I get for trying to be romantic…”

                “I didn’t really think of  _pegging_ as something romantic!" she exclaims. “The time with you, yes –– and you said  _you guess_ , too!"

                "I did!" he says, and he untangles his fingers from hers to brush her long bangs from her face. “I’ve been really… excited, though,” he decides.

                “I’m glad," she says. "I've really liked this, too.”

                 He sighs happily.

                "I'm so glad I found you," he says, and now Ada has heard this line a million times over, and said it herself a thousand times more. He brushes her bangs back again and then pulls her into a kiss, and for what feels like the hundredth time this week, Ada feels glad. She hopes their marriage always holds onto some of this lovestruck silliness, where they can act like fools and talk too sweetly to each other with such little consequence.

                 “Me too," she says. She reaches to bump her nose against his. “So are we going to slip down to that slippermaker sometime tonight, then? Under the cover of darkness?”

                "Yeah," Chrom says, with a bold nod, as if he were agreeing to some wild battle plan. "Let's do it!”

 

* * *

                Chrom is wound up and high-strung by time he’s finished with the Plegian delegates. Politics have never been his strong suit, which a fact most unfortunate given his status as the crown prince and, even more importantly, the incumbent Exalt. Put him in a room where he is troubled with war reparations, cut-off merchant routes, peacekeeping talks and the looming threat of new uprisings, and he’s bound to end up with his shoulders stiff with stress and his temper flaring.

                 Ada watches the last hour from the balconies over the throne room, leaning against the railing with her arms folded. She listens to the frustration ebb and flow from his voice as the conversation moves further from Ylisse’s ideal terms and then closer again, over and over again. She watches him get up from his seat occasionally to pace, and how the members of council often speak for him. She watches them sort things out largely without Chrom. 

                 They all know he still has a lot of growing to do before he can take the throne. 

                 Frederick steps up behind her on the balcony, though he keeps a distance that Ada takes to be a “safe” one. When she turns to look at him, he doesn’t quite meet her eyes.

                 “I’m surprised you’re not down there with him,” she says.

                "He sent me out,” Frederick says. 

                “That was foolish of him,” Ada says.

                 Frederick says nothing, but Ada still sees the bit of pride in the way he carries himself. The silence lingers for a beat.

                 “I’m sorry for embarrassing you yesterday,” she says.

                 And then there’s that tinge of pink back in his cheeks. What is with these Ylissean men and their rosy cheeks? Ada lets him ignore her for a moment before she speaks up again.

                 “After this meeting, Chrom and I are going to sneak off into town alone. Cut us a break tonight and let us go?”

                 That gets a reaction. Frederick frowns.

                 “I don’t think asking for my blessing will get you any further than sneaking out would,” Frederick says. “You should understand why it is not permissible to leave without an escort. Have you learned nothing since coming to live in the castle?”

                 Ada shrugs and turns her eyes back to the court floor below.

                 “It was worth a try.”

                 “Aren’t you supposed to be a tactician?” Frederick asks, somewhat dryly. And then he pauses again, and adds: “No, this could be even more nefarious. What design do you have that requires telling me first?”

                 Ada doesn’t reply — a taste of his own medicine. Chrom happens to look up and catch her eye, and she waves. He gives her a tight smile. She moves away from the balcony railing to head for the stairs, but Frederick blocks her path.

                 “I doubt I’d ever be able to trick _you_ ,” Ada says.

                 “That is correct,” Frederick replies.

                 She steps around him and heads down the stairs, Frederick’s heavy footfall right on her heels. She meets Chrom at the doors and nods her head in Frederick’s direction as she slides into a comforting hug.

                 Chrom, still looking somewhat put-off by the meeting, glances to Frederick.

                 Frederick speaks first: "Last time milord went into town without an escort, he was taken to a brothel."

                 “I was not,” Chrom replies, a little exasperated, but he also keeps his attention fixed on Frederick, even when Ada gives him a _look_. “Frederick, go see if Lissa needs anything tonight. We’ll be fine alone.”

                 “Even barring typical protocol, I do not think it safe with Plegian delegates in the city,” Frederick says.

                 “You can ride with us to the edge of town, and meet us there for the way back,” Chrom says. “And we’ll go armed.”

                 Frederick looks terribly unsatisfied with this plan, and it’s clear in his narrowed eyes. Ada glances at her husband.

                 “It’s an order,” Chrom adds.

                Ada can’t resist watching Frederick’s expression shift to weary compliance.

                 “Then I will ready your horses at once.”

                 Off he goes.

                 “Are you alright?” Ada asks Chrom, reaching to touch his arm gently.

                "I can explain about the brothel," he says, testily.

                 "Explain what?" Ada asks. And then she is surprised: "You didn't know that I knew?"

                 "No!" He gives her a thoroughly annoyed look. "Who told you?!"

                 "Nobody," Ada says. "I'm your tactician. I just know these things."

"And you didn't think to mention it?"

                Ada raises an eyebrow.

                 “No. Why would I?”

                 “I don’t know,” Chrom sighs suddenly, but he shakes his head and takes her hand with an affectionate squeeze. “Let’s just get this over with.”

 

* * *

 

                It is much easier to “sneak out” when it’s done with permission, Ada finds; a trip back to their quarters to change takes no time at all, and by time they head down to the stables in more non-descript garb, Chrom’s quite a bit more relaxed, and maybe even getting excited again. She feels it in his grip, in the way he walks in longer strides, the way he catches her eye with a little quirk of his lips.

                 Frederick has their horses saddled and waiting by the mounting blocks. He looks about as thrilled as he did before, especially when Chrom pulls Ada aside at the gate and he catches her mouth in a hard kiss. (If he hadn’t had a rough evening, Ada likely would have balked at doing this in front of Frederick –– she’s treaded on the poor man’s patience enough in the past day.) Even against her own preferences, she indulges her husband this once. He feels like he needs it, his shoulders tense under her hands and his body taut with stress. 

                 Frederick clears his throat.

                 “We are ready to depart, milord,” Frederick says.

                 “Thank you,” Chrom says as he offers Ada a hand up into the saddle –– not that she needs it, but she humours him. He follows suit with his own horse, as does Frederick. 

                 Frederick leads them out of the gates in silence.

                 “What was that about?” Ada asks.

                 “I just had to,” Chrom says, “I felt like it was right.”

                 Ada often wishes she could be so carefree, so foolhardy to just follow whatever whim or foible crosses her mind, but well, she enjoys his easy candor. Even now, as the castle grounds disappear into the night behind them, his frustration seems to dissipate with it, and he seems lighter. He’s always lighter with a sword on his belt and adventure beyond the castle walls.

                 It takes the better part of an hour to get to a part of town where Chrom feels comfortable with the distance and the anonymity of it. Frederick promises to wait for them, and Ada is sure he will scarcely breathe until they return. 

                 “We need to find him a wife,” Ada remarks as they carry on alone.

                 “He’s balked every single time Lissa has tried, but we should,” Chrom says, and then he considers: “I wonder if he’d just be even more neurotic.”

                 “Maybe,” Ada says, with an amused huff.

                 The streets are hardly empty at this hour, though certainly quieter than during the day — though there’s the occasional turned head, most of the people out after dark are coming out of taverns and inns and are perhaps too drunk or otherwise distracted to care. With Ada in a plain grey coat with a hood and Chrom in a blue cloak that largely covers Falchion, they’re hardly a noticable pair, but Chrom glances around them as if someone might be following them.

                 And the further they go, the more Chrom’s ebbing frustration turns to nervous energy. When they dismount across the street from their destination, she turns to him.

                 “Are you nervous?” she asks.

                 “No,” he says, but he answers a little too quickly for her liking. He knows it, too. “Well, maybe a little.”

                 “Are you still okay with this?” Ada asks. She’s never seen him so antsy.

                 "Yes!" Chrom says, hurriedly. “Yes, yes, I just— is this  _really_  the best way to go about this?"

                 "What's wrong with how we're going about this?"

                 He knows it’s silly to question her methods – gods, the only thing Ada can’t plan for better than he can is the army’s grocery list, and they’ve been through this so many times the past few days – but she knows he just can’t help it. He’s Chrom. That’s just how he does things: blisteringly confident until he feels cornered, and then he’s flailing all over the place. Figuratively, anyway. It baffles her that someone who can jump into continent-spanning wars can be nervous at a little _adult_ shopping.

                 (But at the same time, if she’s being honest, Ada prefers to cover up her own nervousness by pretending she knows exactly what the hell she’s doing, and that’s precisely her approach now.)

                 “I just don’t want anyone to see us,” Chrom says. “There are more people out than I thought.”

                “Well, then, let’s go in where the people can’t see us,” she says, and before Chrom can argue, she takes his hand and marches him with her. He could dig his heels in and stop her, but he follows her with his face flushed red.

                 And then there’s no going back.


	3. Put In Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrom and Ada meet the "slippermaker", set a date, and do the deed.

 

Late as it is, the slippermaker is awake, as if expecting them. The windows glow pale yellow through the closed curtains, the only ones on the street still alight. 

She knocks, Chrom simultaneously tightening his grip on her hand. She can feel the thud-thud of his heart echoing through her.

The door opens just a crack, a sliver of an old face peering at them through the gap, and then it opens further.

 “New patrons, I presume,” he says.

 “Hello,” Ada says. “Kerdon, is it?”

 The man opens the door further.

 “Come in, come in,” Kerdon says, gesturing fervently. For a old man with a balding head, he is surprisingly sprightly. 

 Kerdon doesn't seem to recognize the pending-Exalt of his kingdom at first, though Ada’s sure the axe will fall eventually. Ada lets Chrom linger on the spot for a second, and then she pulls him in with her. She’s sure he’s expecting to keep some sort of anonymity, but alas, it could never be: Kerdon offers to take their capes, and Chrom reluctantly hands it over, and there’s no hiding that he’s a strikingly handsome man with unmissable blue hair and the brand of Naga on his bicep, and she's his bright-haired wife. Odds are there isn't a couple like them in all of Ylisse.

 "Lord Chrom,” Kerdon says, suddenly, bowing to them both. "And Lady Ada. How wonderful to have patrons such as yourselves. I did not think I’d ever seen such a day!”

 Ada watches Chrom dry-swallow and lift his chin a little higher. Being formally addressed seems to relax him somewhat, at least — Ada has felt it herself recently, how people tend to trend more carefully around royalty.

 "Today's the day, then… or tonight’s the night,” he says, and he glances briefly around the front room, eyes falling on a young woman cleaning tools by the light of the oil lamps. "Ah... if it's not too much trouble, I'd much prefer privacy."

 “Everything is completely private under my roof!” Kerdon says, booming loud, and he gestures to the woman. “She is an apprentice of mine. Go have a seat on the couch, I will gather some of my wares and we will talk.”

 Chrom nods, and to Ada’s surprise he takes the initiative, walking her in that direction. The woman at the end of the couch smiles at them, but Chrom sits down with a good distance between them.

 “Move down,” Ada laughs, looking at the space he’s left her between his hip and the armrest. She nudges Chrom with her knee and he reluctantly moves over. He doesn’t let go of her hand for even an instant, not even when they’re properly sat down.

 “First time?” the woman at the end of the couch says.

 “That’s right,” Ada says. 

 “How lucky,” the woman says. “Not many couples come together, you know.”

 “I guess I’m extra lucky, then,” Ada says. Chrom holds her hand with both of his, and he looks at her with a tight smile that is screaming for mercy.

 And then Kerdon is back, carrying a stack of polished wooden boxes under one arm and a bottle of wine under the other, which he sets out on the table. Ada glances at Chrom when the boxes are arranged before them, and she watches him sink back into the cushions with that smile growing even tighter.

 “Chrom, _relax_ ,” Ada says, laughing despite herself.

 “Are you nervous, milord?” Kerdon asks, immediately, thick eyebrows flying up.

 “No,” Chrom replies, a little too quickly. “No, no… just… is there any chance you could just leave us in complete privacy, and we can look on our own?”

 Kerdon lets out a booming laugh.

 “That’s not how this is done, Lord Chrom,” he says, almost a little stern. “These are pieces of art, you know, and you wouldn’t dare insult an artist by asking him to leave, would you?”

 Chrom seems a little startled, but he nods.

 “No,” he admits. “Sorry, but…”

 “You won’t have a sorry butt if you get the right one, my lord,” Kerdon interrupts, grinning. “And you do want my expertise, yes?”

 “I— _what?_ ” Chrom replies. Ada just laughs, and Chrom does too, at an awkward delay. _Oh._

 “We very much want your expertise,” Ada says, when it doesn’t seem like Chrom will.

 “Of course you do!” Kerdon says. “Of course. That’s why you came to me, and not one of those lesser fellows.”

 “You did come with high recommendations,” Ada says.

 “Let’s just get on with this,” Chrom interjects.

“Now he’s eager,” Kerdon says to Ada, almost conspiratorialy. He opens the first box as he speaks, and the woman puts away her tools to pour them all some drink — Chrom takes the first glass as soon as it’s poured.

“I’ve been eager for a _while_ ,” Chrom says, “I’d just like to survive this without my face turning permanently red.”

 A bit late for that, Ada thinks, but for his sake and against her own character, she leans in to press a chaste kiss to his beet-red cheek. Chrom gives a little amused huff and he lets go of her hand in favour of putting his arm across the back of the couch, the slightest bit more comfortable.

 Kerdon takes the first one from its box and holds it out to Ada, who takes it. It is a fairly slender curve, made from some sort of leather.

 “Pretty,” she says.

 “It is pretty,” Kerdon agrees. “Good dog-leather, hard to come by. The delight of housewives everywhere, you know, and thensome. I made an eight-fingered one recently, I would show you if I didn’t have patrons arguing over who would get it already.”

 “What?” Chrom says, and he laughs. “Eight fingers? Like for… eight people at once?”

Kerdon’s laughter is positively roaring.

“Eight people! No, no –– eight-fingered is eight inches! That’s a funny mental image though, isn’t it? I think that would take another war to leave that many lonely housewives that desperate, wouldn’t it.”

“I don’t think we’re rushing to declare war any time soon,” Chrom says, and he sets down his glass to take the dildo from Ada, who places it into his hand gently. He weighs it in his palm the same way he might hold a toad –– with apprehensive curiosity.

“Leather’s good,” Kerdon says. “Closest you can get to flesh, plenty smooth, but they don’t last near as long as ivory or polished wood. Maybe not so good for the man, too; it absorbs sometimes, you see.”

“A friend showed me ivory,” Ada says. “It was what she recommended.”

 “Well, I recommend you any of them,” Kerdon says. “But here.”

 He pulls out a second, this one in ivory and much closer to Maribelle’s, and he offers it to them. Again, Ada takes it first.

 Chrom raises his eyebrows.

 “That’s… huge," he says, maybe a touch defensive.

 Ada laughs, holding it up for comparison with her hand.

 "Oh please, it's barely over a finger."

 "Yeah, but I'm used to..." He trails off, eyes going to Kerdon subconsciously, as if to check that his attention is politely diverted. It isn’t. Kerdon just chuckles.

 "One finger?" Ada finishes.

 He nods so curtly it's barely even a nod.

 “You’ll adjust,” Kerdon remarks, and Chrom nearly aspirates his wine.

 “I never thought I’d be in a conversation like this,” Chrom protests, but he seems to be relaxing, if only by a bit.

 And that’s how it goes for perhaps an hour, until they’re at the last box and Chrom comes up with something Ada hadn’t considered at all: "Let's get one for you, too," he says.

 "For what?" Ada asks. "I have you, remember?"

 "I know," he says. "But what if I have to travel?"

 "I'd go with you," she says, pointedly. "You're not likely to go anywhere without your _tactician_ , forget my being your wife for a moment."

 "Yes, but what if you couldn't?" he asks.

 Ada sighs, but it's good humored enough. She leans her cheek in her hand, her elbow against the armrest, and she watches him for a second, utterly enamored by her favourite idiot.

 "Fine, I'll get one, too,” she agrees.

 Chrom ends up picking it out for her, and to Ada's surprise, he ends up picking _two_ for himself: both made of ivory, one bound in leather for a handle and the other bare. The bare one is slightly shorter but also thicker, with a less prominent head, while the leather-bound one is closer to Ada's fingers. She doesn't ask why he bothers with the thicker one because she can guess well enough on her own, even if he won't say it.  

 There’s a matching harness. Ada catches Chrom watching a little too intensely while she’s measured, the apprentice’s measuring tape looped around her hips and pulled taut around the tops of her thighs, and then she catches him shifting in his seat. There’s that old tent in his pants again, and while Kerdon and the apprentice are in the back making the appropriate belt notches in a harness, he adjusts himself while Ada snickers.

 “Shh,” he hushes her, turning his attention to fishing out his money pouch. 

"He practically just got his taxes back," Ada says, as Chrom counts out the appropriate gold. "Is this an appropriate use of funds to begin with?"

 "Stop that," Chrom says, amused.

 Once wrapped up and paid for, Chrom takes the box with their new toys under his arm, and they bid the slippermaker goodnight and head out. The lights in the house blow out behind them. It's late enough that the oil in the streetlamps is low, and only their dim orange light and the moonlight above lights their way across the square to their horses. The "danger" of the unknown having subsided, they're both giddy. Chrom shifts the box to one hip, and Ada makes a show of glancing at his groin. 

 "Everything still under control?" she asks.

 Chrom chuckles, low in his throat.

 "Very funny," he says. "I'll remind you that I have excellent self-control, and one slip-up doesn't change that."

 “Two, almost three," she reminds him. "In the past day alone."

 "Well, I'll bet you wouldn't have much self-control, if you couldn't hide it," Chrom teases. "You're probably just wet all the time, and nobody knows."

 Ada glances at him sidelong with a smile, and that causes his smile to flicker.

 "Wait," he says, stopping in his tracks. "Are you?"

 "I can't believe what comes out of your mouth sometimes!” she says, continuing to her horse.

 "Are you really? Come here," he says, laughing.

 "What?" she says.

 “ _Please_ , Ada?” he bids her, beckoning her over. She still lingers by her horse, giving him a look like he's a lunatic. When she doesn’t budge, he shoves the box into his horse’s saddlebags makes his way over to her instead.

 Ada laughs at him, even as he sidles into her personal bubble as if he's going to kiss her, but she just ends up caught in his arms, his hands sliding down her waist.

 "Uh," she says. "What are you thinking?"

"There's no one around," he says, and the casual mischief in his tone is certainly enough to make her wet. While he's been plenty embolded by the night's adventures, she still has to glance around them to ensure that the streets really are deserted. 

 She's relatively shameless when it comes to talk, but she's never liked public displays of affection, much less having her husband's hand down her pants in public -- he knows that, and despite knowing full-well that her approach is the exact opposite of his, he still tests her sometimes.

But even when he does, how could she deny who he is, the sort of man who follows his feelings and his whims no matter what?

He trails his fingers up her forearm, wordlessly coaxing, and she looks up at him, wondering how she came to love someone as funny as him. Then she glances to his hand, his strong fingers and broad palm, calloused from handling swords more roughly than any other prince might. Sturdy, beautiful hands.

"Okay," she says, relenting with a smile.

 He casually pulls his cloak around them both and presses a brief kiss to her temple, and with his free hand he thumbs at her fly. She reaches down to unbutton it for him. This close, she can practically feel his heart thudding in his chest, and the horse's withers shiver against her back. He looks at her with an anticipation she feels echo in her own body. 

One, two and then three buttons open, and with a little drawn breath he slips his hand down the front. His fingers and palm are warm gliding down her abdomen, over the mound of her groin and curling in around her, gently cupping. His fingers press up against her cleft firmly, right through her smallclothes, and she just barely rises on the balls of her feet to press her hips forward against his hand. They both let out a long breath, and she glances up at him for his reaction.

"You are!" he says, with an incredulous laugh. "I didn't think..."

"Happy?" Ada asks, and she bites back a little noise when he strokes her, a little come-hither gesture along the thin fabric of her smallclothes. He presses in closer, body nearly flush with hers save the hand between them.

"Absolutely," he says, happy indeed.

He gropes, as if trying to find the edge of the fabric to sneak his fingers under, but at that she gently takes his wrist and stops him.

"Chrom."

 "I know," he murmurs, a little amused. "I know, I know."

 He withdraws his hand, leaving her feeling hyper-aware of his absense, even if it had barely been a moment with him there at all. She can't deny wanting him to linger, but they're an hour from their home and they have Frederick waiting. With the warmth still pooling in her groin, she rebuttons her trousers.

 "Let's get home to bed," she says.

 “Absolutely.”

 

* * *

 

Once in the castle doors and having bid Frederick goodnight, it takes them forever to get to their quarters, especially with their fooling around between flights of stairs. It’s great fun when the castle has gone to sleep for the night, the lonely cavernous halls echoing with the sounds Ada makes when he hitches her up against a column here or a wall there, both their laughter bouncing off the vaulted ceilings. They're both tired but too young and stupid to care. Newlyweds.

 "Enough teasing," she says, when for the millionth time he almost gets his hand back in her pants and is curling his fingers against her. "Just take me to bed!"

 "As you wish!" he grins, and she yelps as he scoops her up in his arms. She knows he'd never drop her, but she throws her arms around his neck anyway, and he hefts her up a little higher against his chest. He carries her like that up the last flight of stairs and down the long corridor to their quarters, where he fumbles his way through the door and deposits her on the nearest bit of furniture. He's on her again at once.

 Chrom fucks like a man possessed that night, bending her over the back of the couch and taking her from behind with such deep, hard thrusts that she has to keep her hands out just to keep her balance upright and press back against him in time. Even then, the couch legs screech a little every time they budge across the polished floors. _Screech, screech, moan._ He's loud, too, and she’s thoroughly weak at the knees by time they're finished. It’s a wild time.

They fall asleep on the couch some time later, and at some point in the night, they end up in their bed proper — Ada only vaguely imagines Chrom scooping her up and taking her there, and she wakes up with him wrapped around her, his face buried in her hair, his cock firmly against her buttocks once more. Why he likes to sleep like that, she has no idea, but she's well used to it by now, and she just snuggles back against him. 

 And then, still at some obscene hour of the morning, he wakes her up again with a gentle shake to the shoulder and a damning question: "Did we bring the box up with us?"

 "What box?" she mumbles.

  _Oh wait,_ she thinks sleepily. _That_ box.

 "It's still in my saddlebags," Chrom says, and he goes as white as a sheet. "I hope Frederick didn’t––“

 Chrom is out of bed in an instant, tugging his pants back on, and before Ada can even get another word in, he's out the door with a bang. She just nods back off.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up with Chrom back in bed, stretched out on his side with his bare back to her, but she knows he's awake -- he's lazily playing with himself, something she can tell immediately because of how he's moving his arm. Spying a fair opportunity, Ada rolls over to spoon him, her naked body curved against his, and Chrom chuckles when she wraps an arm around his waist and presses her hips against his butt with a deliberate little jostle.

 "Good morning," he says, craning his neck to look at her. "What are you up to?"

"Exactly what you do to me," Ada replies, and just for the hell of it she deliberately thrusts against him a few more times with her groin. "Like _every_ other night, you curl against me with your cock against my butt."

"I do not," Chrom laughs.

"You do!" Ada laughs. "I think you're just into butts. You're an ass man." 

“I can’t believe how crude you can be on my ears," he replies, but he reaches behind him to squeeze a handful of her thigh, conveniently pulling her against him in the process. Ada snickers against his neck.

"Did you get the box back?" she asks.

"Yes, thank the gods," Chrom says. "I don't know what we were thinking, leaving it there, but it's in your dresser now."

"My dresser?" Ada asks, laughing. "What, worried someone will think it’s yours?"

"Shhh," Chrom hushes her, but he presses himself back against her comfortably, practically rolling against her. Ada runs a hand up his chest, and he resumes lazily jerking himself. "Mm..."

He's so bed-warm and languid, pressed back against her, the warmth of skin-on-skin running the whole length of them. The weight of him is nice, half-pinning her to the mattress so she feels his every breath, every little twitch and stretch of muscle. She just presses a few kisses to his shoulders, her hand running again and again over his abs, and her wrist brushes his in a way that she can feel every tug and pull he makes on his cock.  

"Chrom," she murmurs in his ear, as his breaths turn a little shuddery, a little high. She nudges him with her knee, and when he opens his legs she gently slips her thigh against his groin, his balls heavy against her skin. He grinds back against her, and when he presses back hard enough that she has to brace herself, she reaches to still his hand, and he lets her. She takes his cock instead, and it twitches heavily in her hand.

"What are you looking forward to most right now?" she whispers, with one slow, firm tug.

 Chrom gives a shuddering laugh, but he doesn't reply, he just thrusts into her hand.

"Chrom," she repeats, a little lower. "Tell me what you want."

He swallows hard, something she feels through the tension of his neck, and he gropes for her behind him again.

"I want you to peg me."

"When?" she asks, and she can't help but sound kittenish about it, excited.

 "Tonight," he says.

Chrom comes in her hand, so hard she feels his calves tense and his spine straighten out.

"It's a date," she says.

  

* * *

 

Chrom drives her insane all day. 

She’s midway through the most riveting paperwork of her life when Frederick opens the door and Chrom strides in, and as much as she loves to see her husband and looks forward to pounding him tonight, her first instinct is to look at the clock and see what hour it is. Sure enough, he’s early –– they don’t usually take lunch together for another two hours. He’s almost at her desk when she raises a hand, palm flattened.

“Not now, Chrom,” she says. “I have almost made a breakthrough.”

“On estate taxes?” Chrom laughs, skeptical.

She ignores him, even when he rounds the desk and leans over her and her work. He leans so far in that his baldric bumps the back of her ponytail, so she hunches over her work a little more, gently butting him out of the way. Chrom idly looks up at Frederick. 

“You’d think she was looking at a map of a battlefield or something.”

“What _is_ she looking at?” Frederick asks dryly, still from the doorway. 

“I’ve got it!” Ada yelps, suddenly. “Finally! Fifteen boxes of old paperwork, NOTHING in proper order, not a single rhyme or reason to the filing, and I’ve finally found it!”

“Got what?” Chrom asks.

 She holds it up to him, and she trails her finger along the text until the edge of her nail rests below a familiar name.

  _Kerdon._

 Chrom laughs.

 “What are you digging up that for?”

“I wanted to see how much in taxes he’d avoided, and if we could maybe do him a bit of a favour,” Ada says.

“You aren’t serious going to give anyone a personal pardon, are you?” Frederick asks, and Ada snorts.

“I didn’t say that,” she says. “That’d be––”

“An abuse of your office,” Frederick finishes for her.

“Obviously,” she says, and she holds the paper up for Chrom, who takes it to read it proper. “But it might be an excellent place to look into modifying the tax law, especially if it’s for niche trades that could use the business.”

 “Which niche is this?” Frederick asks. And then, clearly knowing what sort of nonsense he has long committed himself to, he adds: “I pray this is not whoever you saw last night.”

 “It is,” Ada says. 

 Chrom is still reading, and he shuffles to the next page.

“There’s a personal statement,” he says. Ada looks up at him just in time to see his eyebrows fly up and his cheeks go shocking pink. Almost without thinking, he reads it aloud: “ _‘Do you not miss your husband’s prick while he’s away at war?’_ ”

Chrom freezes up. Ada claps a hand over her own mouth, eyes darting to Frederick, but in truth it’s Frederick’s turn to look alarmed. 

“Good gods, sire, you went to see _Kerdon_?”

Ada is so surprised she doesn’t even laugh.

 “ _You_ know Kerdon?” 

“That man is guilty of a great deal of tax evasion, amongst other things!” Frederick says, a little vehement, a little defensive. “Not six years ago, there was quite the scandal surrounding his work, you don’t find a single Ylissean who is not aware of him!”

“I never heard of him,” Chrom remarks.

 “There are a great many things you would have heard of, if you spent as much time studying politics as you did swinging around a sword,” Frederick says, which is a great deal ironic, considering who taught Chrom to swing that sword.

“ _You_ know _Kerdon_ ,” Chrom repeats from Ada.

“Not as a customer,” Frederick insists, indignantly. “Now! Enough of this topic. Did we not come here to arrange lunch?”

“I can’t believe he knows Kerdon,” Ada says, leadingly, looking up at Chrom with a mischievous look. “I can’t imagine what else he might know.”

Chrom’s still pink in the cheeks, but he laughs and goes along with it.

“He did know immediately what rolled out of that bag,” Chrom says.

“Wow,” Ada says. “Maybe we could have sent him to get it for us.”

Chrom turns redder and Frederick flashes her a _look_ that says though duty would compell him, the ignominy would destroy him. _Two for one,_ Ada thinks. Frederick has had quite enough, however, and he huffs at them both and reaches for the door handle.

“I would never dare wish another war upon the halidom,” Frederick announces, “but both of you need something _productive_ to do.”

He pulls the door shut with a snap, leaving them alone in the office, and Ada immediately bursts into laughter.

“I’m not going to be able to look at him in the eye for a week,” Chrom says, mournful despite how he’s chuckling. “I’m going to have to get you back for that one, though. No mercy from me anymore.”

“A week ago you wanted to hide under the covers when I said _dildo_ out loud,” Ada snorts.

“You’re ruining my good reputation, _lady,_ ” Chrom jokes, bending to kiss her.

They go to an early lunch full of laughter.

 

* * *

 

Not an hour after they’ve parted again, there’s Chrom at her office door once more, grinning and bearing flowers for her. They’re a sad little bunch, clearly stolen from the gardens and self-arranged into a hasty little bundle, and from somewhere he’s managed to acquire a _bootlace_ to bind them together with. It’s endearingly _him_ , and when he holds them out to her she takes them with a good-natured sigh.

“Sweetheart,” she complains. “You’re too much sometimes.”

“I just want you to know how appreciated you are,” Chrom says, pleasant as can be, and he leans over her desk to kiss her again. 

She knows what’s coming, as the flowers in one hand and the quill in the other leave her wide open. He takes swift advantage, reaching to tweak one of her breasts with a firm hand, and she laughs against his mouth and then gently pushes him off.

“Down boy!” she admonishes him, tapping him on the face with the bouquet. “Go get back to work. Go, go, go.”

“ _You_ get back to work,” Chrom grins. “I finally closed negotiations on broadening trade routes with Plegia, and what are you doing? Looking up tax forms for _slippers_.”

She just laughs and manages to shoo him away until dinner.

 

* * *

 

Chrom drinks an extra glass of wine with dinner that night, and he takes another to bed with him — _overkill_ , Ada thinks, _and inevitably self-sabotaging_ , but she figures whatever the results are, it's probably best that he's comfortable. On the other hand, the way he wants it to be _special_ is cute compared to her simple, pragmatic desire for it to be a good experience. It’ll be fine either way, as long as he doesn’t end up with his head over a basin.

"Ease up," she tells him, though wine has made him plenty languid already. He laughs as she takes the half-finished glass from him.

"I don't think I've drunk this much since our wedding," he says.

Ada laughs.

"You drank twice this much at Vaike's wedding, and that was just a month ago."

"True," Chrom says, "but I don't remember that."

"No kidding," Ada says.

“Come here,” he says, pulling her inside the room. Chrom closes the door behind them and then presses her up against it, and she grins when her back hits the door.

He pins her there with the length of his body, and the upward press of his hips against hers digs her shoulders into the heavy door. It’s a little uncomfortable, but she likes it — always has, always will. His hands begin to roam and his mouth meets hers, and she almost forgets the wine glass in her hand until it sloshes on her wrist.

He's a sloppier kisser when drunk, but a little extra enthusiastic. Not a bad trade off, by any means.

“Hey," Ada tells him, breaking off after a moment. “You ready?”

“Absolutely,” he says.

She pushes him off her and crosses the room, dropping off the wine glass on the vanity on the way. He grabs the little wooden box with their toy out of the vanity drawer. Halfway between the vanity and the bed, he grabs her again, roughly this time.

"Chrom," she laughs as he drags her pants down her hips without even undoing the buttons. The fabric strains over her butt and then drops around her knees. "Let me get my _boots_ off."

"Can't wait," he says, and he kneels down to unlace them himself.

 "You're ridiculous," she tells him, letting him fuss. He tugs the laces loose with one hand and helps her out of them and her pants, and on his way back up he trails kisses along her thighs and all the way up to her navel. By time he’s on his feet again, he’s taking her shirt up over her head, and his mouth is on her again quickly, kissing down her sternum and abdomen.

Her fingers lace through his hair, and before he can get much further, she gently pulls him to her attention. He looks up, cheeks flushed and eyes eager.

She just smiles down at him. 

"Why don't you put it on me?" Ada suggests.

He nods fervently, and then drops to his knees in front of her, only to be momentarily distracted by her pussy in his face. He presses a brief kiss to the patch of hair between her legs, burying his nose against her just to do so, and Ada runs a hand over the back of his head affectionately. He takes a deep breath and looks down to see what he’s doing, pulling the toys out of the box and sorting the harness out. 

“Here we go,” he says, with one long breath out.

Chrom helps her step into the belt contraption and then pulls it up to her hips, reaching around her to blindly buckle it up behind her. When the belt pulls taut through the buckle, the dildo stands at attention from her mons, brushing against Chrom's collarbone. 

She watches him glance at it, and then back up at her. 

"Go on," she tells him.

Chrom hesitates for only a second, lacing the end of the belt back through the buckle with a firm tug. Only then does he reach to palm the dildo experimentally. It's so tight in its harness that she feels his touch echo through the straps, especially when he gently tugs on it the way he might stroke his own cock.

"Can I...?" He pauses, abruptly starts again: " _May_  I?"

She can't help but be amused.

"You can do whatever you want, love," she murmurs.

Chrom shifts on his knees, closer, and one hand wrapped at the base of her "cock". The other settles on the back of her thigh, fingers splayed. He looks up at her, and then slowly presses a tentative kiss to its base, and then its shaft. The ivory is pale against his lips and his flushing cheeks. He lingers there, slow and studious. 

"I've watched you do this a million times," he says.

She gently runs her nails along his scalp, and she leans her weight forward just to press the cock into his hand, and his grip slides along her length.

“It’s a little different now,” she replies. “Isn’t it?”

Chrom nods, and he can't help but grin. He runs his other hand up the back of her thigh, strong and firm, and he gives her flesh a gentle squeeze. She rocks back again, just slightly, and Chrom follows her with his hand. He leans so close that the dildo brushes his cheek.

"Lick it," she tells him. “Long and slow.”

So he does, long and slow, tentative at first, but in that undeniably _Chrom_ way he’s quick with enthusiasm, regardless of experience. And she, in that undeniably _Ada_ way, she watches almost studiously. There’s plenty to be enjoyed about it, watching her husband run his tongue along the rigid shaft of her ivory dildo, the way his tongue flicks off the edge before returning to the base. 

There’s a big difference from the usual view when he goes down on her: there’s more to see now, from this angle, when it’s not so tight flesh-on-flesh, and this way she gets to watch every little motion. The ivory glistens wetter with every pass, and a bubble of saliva pops against his lips when he makes his way back down again. His hand on her thigh seems to pull her closer to him, as if her standing still couldn’t be enough for him.

He glances up at her and she can't help but rake her teeth over her bottom lip and reach to brush his bangs out of his face. 

“Ada,” he says, low in his throat, still so close to her that she can feel his breath. He doesn’t take his eyes off her, doesn’t even blink, and then he takes the dildo in his mouth.

The head passes his lips, hard and slick, and she watches his cheeks hollow out as he tests how deep he can go. She keeps her hand in his hair, gently guiding, tugging here or there — not too deep yet, not too quick. Chrom tests himself anyway, breaking away to take deep breaths and then moving back to her, taking the dildo a little more, bit by bit. 

And because he’s good, he slides two fingers inside her, and she's already worked up enough just from watching him that they go in slick and easy. His mouth travels down the shaft of the dildo again, making little pulls against it with his lips, and she finds herself pressing back against him in shallow little rocking thrusts. He’s the one who moans first, a sound deep from his chest but muffled by his lips wrapped around the shaft. That simultaneous inward curl of his fingers almost makes her knees buckle. Her grip on his hair tightens, and she inadvertently presses her hips forward, pushing the dildo just a bit deeper into his mouth.

It tickles her when he takes it, committed even with a little choke, and when she pulls back again, he moves as if to go with her but instead lets her slide away.

“Whoops,” she says, maybe a touch sheepish despite the sharpness of her breath. 

“It’s okay,” he says, breathy too, and he strokes her again, even as she rocks her hips against his hand. “Can we go…?”

“To bed,” she agrees, and she tugs herself from his fingers and reaches to pull him to his feet. He rises to his feet, so close his chest nearly brushes hers, and his hands trail up her waist and settle warm on her skin. For a beat she just looks at him and his heaving chest and the part of his lips, and she feels him warm against her. Chrom’s cock strains against the lacing of his trousers, barely freed from its trappings. 

Ada immediately reaches to peel his trousers down off his hips, and he frantically tackles the buttons of his white shirt, and they strip him with a mutual euphoria. They grope each other with a frenzy even unlike the night before, when they’d played at lovemaking all across the sleeping castle.

Now, his cock threatens to spar with her ivory dildo, and Chrom is so hard it must burn. 

Who pulls who onto the bed doesn't really register — they go down in a tangle of limbs, a mess of lips on skin and groping hands, and then he leans back on one elbow with her atop him, and then flat when she reaches to push him all the way down. She scoots forward, knees under his thighs, which she splays with one long, smooth push of her hands. Chrom laughs, maybe a little nervously, but at this point his cock stands stiffly above his abdomen, the head darkly reddened and wet with precum. 

She takes a second to admire him, hands running gently down his thighs and around the curve of his ass. He reaches up to her to take her face in his hands, and she leans over to kiss him. 

"Thank you for all this," he breathes. 

"You're most welcome," she replies, and he nods fervently just for the joy of it, and he kisses her again. He heaves a deep breath when he finally lets her go again.

"Now fuck me," he says. 

The words are almost foreign in his mouth, but no less desiring. Ada feels a sharp twinge in her own body, one that throbs hard under the base of the dildo. Oh, she’ll fuck him, alright.

Ada straightens up again, and she reaches for the bottle of oil left on the bed. The dildo is plenty slick with spit already, but she dribbles more in her hand for good measure and spreads it on the dildo and Chrom both. Chrom makes a little noise of anticipation, takes a deep breath, and he even reaches down to help guide her in.  

She feels his entire body tense and then relax at the initial resistance, and then, when she gently presses forward with her hips, he lets out a long gasp.

"Good?" she murmurs, but she doesn't expect a response. He drops his head back against the pillows and straightens out his spine like an arrow, a motion that drives his body up against her lap hard and pushes him deeper. He groans.

She presses forward, somewhat surprised by the immedate effort in _fucking_ , and Chrom positively pants. She finds her rhythm as he rakes his fingers through the sheets, and then, when she’s sure she’s got the hang of it, she reaches for his cock.

 A startled sound pops off Chrom’s lips with the first stroke, and she feels the tension course from him to her as he arches his hips.

 “Ada,” he gasps. He reaches to grab her. “Slow down,” Chrom says, and then, even more urgently: "Slow! ... Slow down. I almost— gods—”

 Ada stills, Chrom panting and looking at her some mix of alarm and heady pleasure. He grips her wrist like iron, still pressing back against her.

 “Too much?” she asks, and she lets go in favour of running her hands along the soft skin of his inner thighs. He shudders nicely.

 “Yeah, I almost..." he repeats, trailing. He drops his head back, deep in the pillows, eyes closed to concentrate.

“You can, you know,” she says, amused. “It’s kind of the _objective_.”

Chrom chuckles. His chest rises high with every breath, and she feels his legs tense and then loosen again on either side of her. She rocks forward, ever so gently.

“Go on, then,” he says. 

She bends over him, leaning across his body with a smile on her face, and she presses a kiss or two to his chest. He runs his hands along her sides, and as he can’t quite reach to kiss her mouth, he lets his head fall back again. She doesn’t need to remind him that tomorrow’s another day; he’s keenly pressing back against her again, and so she straightens again and thrusts into him again in long, slower strokes. Chrom gropes for her blindly, too distracted by the prick in his ass — he's a sweating, moaning mess.

 It’s difficult to thrust and lean too far over over him at the same time, but she manages to lean forward enough to have his cock press against her belly. Chrom heaves a deep breath, and she feels the heaviness of his cock bobbing against her, the head leaving a wet smear on her skin and the fat vein along the underside thick enough to _feel_. She presses into him without any of the initial resistance anymore, deeper than she's ever been with her fingers alone. 

Chrom gasps, moans: "Oh, gods. _Hard._ "

She doesn't need to go hard, just steady and with more pressure, and she feels him winding up under her, tight like a coil. He turns his head to the side, panting, and then looks back to her: "I'm going to..."

"Just a little more," she pants, and she presses forward again, her fingers on his cock stroking up just once. The head of his cock brushes the underside of one of her breasts, and Chrom begs something incomprehensible, voice lost on his breath. Ada just pants, harder, the strain of her thighs matched to each stroke, deep and firm. 

Chrom tenses again suddenly. She _feels_ that tension in him every time her thighs press against his, and he groans so loud that he seems to startle himself, and Chrom comes with surprising force, a few thick ropes of come landing on the underside of her breasts. 

The two of them keep thrusting a few seconds longer, smearing the mess everywhere, and then Ada just stills, leaning forward again and panting herself, and she feels the tremble of his body through her hips and thighs, only to realize that’s _her_ , too, that _she’s_ trembling just as much as he is. Still, she runs a hand up his hot side, feeling him shake, feeling _them_ shake. She watches his face –– the beads of sweat dotting his forehead, the way his mouth hangs open. He’s staring at the ceiling, somewhat stunned, until he turns his eyes to her, and that _look_ of complete bliss makes her want to hold him.

 So she withdraws, prompting a sigh of contentment from him, and she crawls up alongside him. She stretches out comfortably along his side, and he puts an arm around her and gently reaches to unbuckle her from the harness. Ada lets him, shifting so it isn’t trapped under her, and Chrom tosses it to the end of the bed before cuddling up.

 “Good?” she asks, breathless.

 He nods vigorously. She presses a kiss to his jaw. For a few minutes they just lay there, messy and wet and satisfied, catching their breath. 

 “How was that for you?” Chrom asks, still breathy. “Tomorrow night… or tomorrow morning, if I can’t wait… I don’t think I’ll be able to wait… but I’m going to return the favour, completely… I should do more now, but… well.”

 Ada snorts. He’s utterly drained, limbs loose and head lolled back, and she takes it as a point of personal pride: her husband, _exhausted,_ at her doing. It makes the burn in her thighs well worth it.

 “I’m sure you will,” she says.

 “Yeah,” Chrom says. He lets out a long breath and then chuckles. “You’re tired, too…”

 “My thighs hurt,” Ada notes, almost laughing. “That took a lot more effort than I was guessing.”

“Kind of like riding hard in the saddle for hours, hm?” Chrom hums.

 Ada does laugh then, rolling over and prompting him to reach to pull her back to him. He pulls her right under his arm and he traps her there in his embrace, more with his weight than any effort. He drapes himself around her, exhausted but content. Ada kisses his arm.

 “Yes,” she says. “Exactly like that!”

“Well, now you know why I get cramps sometimes,” Chrom says with an amused little noise. He reaches to pull her ponytail loose from its tie and he buries his nose in her hair. Ada lets out a content sigh.

 “Duly noted.”

“You’ll get used to it,” he says.

 “Going to get a lot of practice, am I?” Ada teases.

“You’ve awakened my inner barbarian!” Chrom announces, and he presses a kiss to her temple, and just beside her ear, and on the curve of her jaw, and to her collarbone as she laughs and shrugs her shoulders with a squeal. “You’ll– never– escape– now!”

And they laugh and laugh until eventually they drag themselves out of bed to clean up. When they’re done, they crawl back into bed and drift off to sleep, huddled together on one side of the bed.

 

* * *

 

Chrom is still asleep when Ada wakes up, and sometime in the night he’s rolled away from her. She knows by instinct alone that they’ve both overslept, and for a moment she plans to be responsible and get out of bed, but then she decides she’s tired of taxes. Forget the fiefs and their minor lords; Ada curls up against the smooth expanse of Chrom’s back, forehead between his shoulder blades and one arm around his stomach. He’s warm.

“You big idiot,” Ada murmurs, pressing a lazy kiss to his spine.

 Chrom doesn’t reply, but the deep rise and fall of a sigh and the way he subconsciously slips his hand overtop hers is answer enough.

 “I told you you’d like it,” she whispers to him.

 This time, Chrom chuckles, low from his throat.

 “I love you, you know-it-all,” he murmurs. 

 “I love you too,” she replies.

 “So what are we going to do for you?" Chrom asks.

 She laughs a little, and he runs his fingers along the back of her hand. She nudges up to him closer, the tip of her nose bumping against his skin, and the fine hairs on the back of his neck tickle her forehead. 

“I guess that's up for you to decide, since I picked this one,” she says.

Chrom chuckles and runs his hand along her arm gently, right to her elbow, and then back down again.

"I might have an idea," he says. He turns just enough to look at her over his shoulder, and all she can see is the mischievousness in his eyes. She gives him a look in return, almost _challenging_ , the corners of her mouth turned up.

 " _Squirting,_ " he says.

 Ada snickers, and she squirms up against him to whisper just in his ear:

 "I'll _think_ about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the last bit! Wasn't that fun? Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read -- this is the longest piece I've posted publicly in years, and it feels good to do something a little longer. It's been great getting such positive feedback, and maybe I'll try another longer one in the near future :)


	4. Omake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was digging through old stuff again today and found a few paragraphs from the way this fic was originally going to end, so I decided to clean it up and post it :) 
> 
> It's just over a year since I first published New Education, too, and I still feel proud of it. Thank you everyone who has read it, given it kudos, commented on it and/or had Siri read it to them audiobook-style on a long car ride. 
> 
> You're all wonderful and I love you all and thank you so much for reading.
> 
> (I love Frederick.)

.

 

 

 

                The sun is beaming in on Ada's face. She opens her eyes and blearily looks at Frederick, who is standing at the foot of her bed with his hands folded neatly behind his back. He doesn't generally break the open-hours rule, so surely they've overslept. 

                "Good morning," Frederick says.

                Ada sits up, gathering the sheets up around her breasts as she does so. (Not that she cares, at this point, but Frederick would fluster.)

                "Did we fall back asleep?" she asks, scrubbing the sleep from her eyes. 

                "I'm afraid so," Frederick says. 

                "How late are we?"

                "Not terribly," he remarks, and he strides to the copper vessel on Ada's bed-side table to pour two glasses of water, one of which he passes over immediately. Ada takes it gratefully while Frederick just looks down at Chrom, who is face-down on the pillow. "Milord?"

                "What?" Chrom murmurs without lifting his face from the pillow. Ada sits up against the headboard and then belatedly thinks to rearrange the sheets so they're at least covering Chrom's ass, which she does. (Not that Frederick would care, but Chrom would.) 

                "We slept in," Ada says.

                "Oh," Chrom grumbles, and he props himself up on an elbow. Ada admires the smooth curve of his back, the little tense flex of his muscles as he stretches. He squints in the sunlight and waves off Frederick's offered glass of water, grumbling –– he'll be sore today for sure, and for longer than he'll be hungover.

                "So you did," Frederick says, pleasantly enough. "Now that you're up, though, you'll both want to be out of bed soon, so that I can have the maids change the sheets. Would you like them to send your toys away for cleaning, too, or will you be squirreling those away yourselves? I could do it myself, if you so desire, but I'll be honest and say it would embarrass a man of my station to handle such a thing."

                " _What?_ " Chrom utters.

                Frederick glances pointedly at the dildo –– the _slipper_ –– discarded on the bed. In the bold light of the morning, it looks rather _imposing_ , a messy, rigid shaft tangled in leathers.

                Both Ada and Chrom fall silent, stilling, and Ada looks at her husband sidelong.

_I will kill him_ , she says to Chrom, with her eyes alone.

                "No?" Frederick says. "Excellent. I will leave you to it, then."

                Ada narrows her eyes at Frederick. This is revenge of some sort –– it _must_ be. She waits for the axe to fall but Frederick just smiles at her as he rounds the bed once more, sets down Chrom's refused water glass, and begins picking their clothes up off the floor.

                "I also took the liberty of leaving a spare blanket in the wardrobe, along with a few towels," Frederick says, briskly, when neither she nor Chrom have anything else to say. "That's for next time, of course; what's done is done! But in the future, it would be convenient, as neither of you would have to sleep in a wet spot."

_Shut up shut up shut up._

                Chrom sits up at that, the sheets falling off his ass again. He gives Frederick a look that is lost for words. Frederick just smiles and offers Chrom a clean dressing gown, which Chrom accepts a little too quickly to be cool. Ada just sips her water, hoping she might drown in it.

                " _That_ is the most traumatizing thing you've ever said to me," Chrom says, finally.

                "And you'll thank me for it when you are sleeping more comfortably," Frederick says. "Would you like me to pick out your outfit for the day, sire?"

                "No, thank you," Chrom says.

                "Ada?"

                "I'll pass," she says.

                "Then I will take my leave," Frederick says, and off he goes, chin held high. Ada catches a glimpse of the maids waiting on the other side of the door when Frederick passes through, both of them giggling.

                "I could kill him sometimes," Chrom says, with a grouchy little sigh.

                Ada can't help but laugh at how silly it all is, so that's all she does.


End file.
